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Inventory Zones

A zone is a named area of an Inventory node with its own access time. It is how you model a store where reaching one shelf takes longer than reaching another: a near pick face against a high rack, a shop-floor bin against an off-site store.

What a zone holds

Section titled “What a zone holds”
FieldWhat it is
NameThe name items point at. Case does not matter
Access TimeMinutes added once to every withdrawal from this zone
DescriptionA note for you. Nothing reads it during a run

How access time is charged

Section titled “How access time is charged”

Every time stock is taken from an item, the time it takes is two terms added together:

TermHow it is worked out
Picking timeThe quantity taken, multiplied by the item’s Unit Time
Access timeThe zone’s Access Time, added once

The item’s unit time scales with how much you take. The zone’s access time is paid once per withdrawal, whatever the quantity, which is the point: walking to the far rack costs the same whether you collect one part or twenty.

Three things follow from that:

  • Access time applies to withdrawals only. A STORE costs nothing extra, no matter which zone the item lives in. If putting stock away in a distant zone should take time in your model, put that time in the activity doing the putting away.
  • It is always in minutes, with no unit selector on the field.
  • It must be a plain number. A distribution is refused at load, so a zone cannot have a variable access time. Model variable travel with an activity instead.

Zones do not hold a capacity

Section titled “Zones do not hold a capacity”

A zone is a time, not a place with a size. Capacity is set per item and for the inventory as a whole, never per zone.

Renaming and deleting

Section titled “Renaming and deleting”

An item points at its zone by name. Rename or delete a zone and every item pointing at the old name silently loses its access time: nothing warns you, the item’s picks simply get faster. After any change to this tab, open the Items tab and check every item still shows the zone you expect.

Section titled “Related”