Building Materials Distributor: Warehouse Optimization in Sage 100
Industry: Building Materials Distribution | Service: Sage 100 Inventory Management / Warehouse Management
The Challenge
A building materials distributor operating a single large warehouse was experiencing persistent receiving errors — product being received into incorrect bin locations, leading to pick errors and delayed shipments. The Sage 100 bin location structure had been set up during implementation years earlier and no longer reflected how the warehouse was actually organized after multiple layout changes.
The immediate symptom was customer service complaints about delayed shipments, but the underlying issue was that Sage 100 showed stock as available in locations where it no longer existed, while the actual product was in unentered overflow locations not tracked in the system.
Our Approach
We began with a physical warehouse walk-through alongside the warehouse manager to map the current layout against the existing Sage 100 bin location structure. The gap was significant — roughly 40% of active pick locations had either changed names, been consolidated, or were entirely new locations added after the original implementation.
We reconfigured Sage 100's bin location hierarchy to match the current physical layout, established receiving workflows that required bin assignment at the point of receipt (rather than defaulting to a generic receiving location), and set up a directed put-away report to guide stock to primary pick locations first.
We also worked with the warehouse team to conduct a targeted cycle count of the highest-velocity items to reconcile on-hand quantities for the new location structure before going live with the updated configuration.
Results
60% Reduction in Receiving Errors
Pick errors attributable to incorrect bin location data dropped by approximately 60% in the first 60 days after reconfiguration.
Inventory Visibility Restored
All active pick locations represented in Sage 100, eliminating the gap between system-on-hand and physically available inventory for primary SKUs.
Faster Order Fulfillment
Average pick time per order decreased as warehouse staff could trust the system location rather than searching for mislocated stock.
Related Services
Sage 100 Inventory Management, Warehouse Management, Inventory Accuracy Best Practices, and Sage 100 Distribution.