Note: If you have not read the other Manufacturing Workflow articles, then we suggest that you start with those first. Bin operations are one of the final steps in the workflow.

There is a good chance that you may have never used a bin system before, so lets start off with the what and the why before we move onto the how.

Why do we need bins anyway?

In earlier articles, we mentioned that one of the greatest parts of the software is that we can break orders apart and simply have a list of items.

This was helpful to us for multiple reasons, including increased efficiencies for the picker and the person printing(And the person pretreating!), and just making their lives easier in general.

This also creates a bit of a problem for us, though, because now we have to take those items and piece them back together into an order again. That is where the bin system comes in.

What are bins?

Bins are exactly what you think they are....bins. They are rows of physical bins that are relatively small and easy to access. Everyone's setup is a bit different, but the process is the same. As items come through the dryer, they will either be shipped if it is a single item, or it will be assigned to one of these bins if it is a part of a multiple item order. Each bin also has a separate identifier, like a number which we see in the example below.

How do bins work?

Ok so now that we know the what and the why, let's talk about how we actually use them in Riverr. We will use an example order that has 3 items in it:

1. The first item is printed and goes through the dryer. There is a QC manager on the other end that receives the garment and scans it. If everything checks out for the item, then the manager will click on the button at the bottom of the page that says "ready to ship." A dialogue box will pop up and say "there are two more items that need to be printed in this order, so go ahead and put this in Bin #5." Then the QC manager will place the first item in that bin.

2. Now item #2 comes through the dryer, and once again the QC manager scans the item, makes sure it check out, and clicks on ready to ship. Now the dialogue box will say "Hey! The first item in this order is nin Bin #5, and there is one more item left to print, so go ahead and place this one with the first item in Bin 5.

3. Finally, the third item makes its way through the dryer and the QC manager does his/her thing, and now the dialogue box will say "This is the last item in the order! Go and get the other two items out of Bin 5 and ship this order.

The dialogue box will also give a link to the order details page, so that the person shipping the order will be able to confirm the three items that are being shipped are correct.

If everything looks good, then the person who is shipping orders will click on the button that says "Create Label" on the top right, and they will be able to create a label right from the order details page.

And thats it! That is how bins work in Riverr. But before I let you go, let's talk about one more thing.

The Bins Page

This page essentially just gives you a visual of where orders located in the bins, along with corresponding information on each item and each order. You can click into any bin to see this information.

You can add/delete bins here, and you can also clear them if you ever need to.

Also, the green lines represent an occupied bin as well.

Also another quick note: bins will automatically be created for you if you need more, so be prepared with extra physical bins as well!