Virtual to physical #

Instock drives downs costs and risks of ASRS by utilizing simulation first approach. The smaller a simulation-to-reality gap, the higher value will be delivered by modeling and simulation process. For us, it means virtual sites simulated within Instock environment should be almost indistinguishable from sites that are physically launched. From Incloud perspective the differences are minimal – a single flag is_virtual. A getSites API endpoint returns is_virtual flag for every site, with true values for virtual sites used in simulation and false values for physical sites launched with real inventory.

When you are using Incloud, an indicator in the screen header will indicate if your currently selected site is virtual or is physical.

Fulfillment configuration #

Before launching a site in Incloud, representing either virtual ASRS or physical installation, the following attributes and values should be considered:

• Product Information Management (PIM)
  • Optional attributes of product records (e.g. units_per_carton, carton_dimensions) – may be used in decanting process. See relevant API endpoints in PIM section of Instock API.
• Order Management (OMS)
  • Optional attributes of customer orders (e.g. pick_by, route_id) – may be used as input arguments of reservation function.
  • Mode of customer order picking: ASRS bin → ASRS bin or ASRS bin → external container
  • Partial picking policy: defines if System should reserve inventory for customer order or order lines in case there is not enough free inventory.
  • Reservation function: defines a moment in time to add a customer order into the FIFO queue. Arguments for the reservation function may be sourced from attributes of customer orders. Example: A pick_by time attribute is given for each customer order by Host system. Reserve time is then calculated by the reservation function as being, for example, 30 minutes prior to pick_by time.

Every variable mentioned above has a default value, so no worries if you skipped their setup when starting a virtual site, – you’ll be able to change them later.

Workstation processes (picking, decanting, etc.) do not require configuration. Switching between operating processes depends only on the Associate’s choice. At any moment, any of the processes at the workstation may be paused and another process may be started.