Show HN: the app that powers our order fulfillment warehouse

I do this for a client of mine and over the years, have found the following to be the best solution:<p>1. iPod Touch / iPhone with LineaPro Barcode Scanners: <a href="http://ipclineapro.com/" rel="nofollow">http://ipclineapro.com/</a> - managers with personal iPhones get a new case, others get iPods.<p>2. Enterprise iOS license, annual update of certificates is the only chore. Otherwise no worries about deployment of code to each device because it's web-based. All inventory movements, order picks/puts are real-time, wireless.<p>3. Basic HTML webview that goes to //intra.net/barcode/scan/[barcode] upon each scan. The web server handles the rest.<p>4. Use HTML5 with type=tel for entering numbers. Use PhoneGap-style JS-to-ObjC routing for playing alert/warning/success sounds.<p>5. QR Codes are slow. LineaPro is instant and has a red-laser.<p>6. Print labels on Zebra Z Series: <a href="http://www.zebra.com/us/en/products-services/printers/printer-type/industrial/z-series.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.zebra.com/us/en/products-services/printers/printe...</a> - by POSTing an XML to the printer's IP. Design multiple labels with variable fields and in the XML include label name, number of identical copies per label, and the data per label. Prints within 0.5 second.<p>I think I've deployed 40 of these scanners and 10 printers and they work great in a very heavy-use environment - think 10000+ scans, 2500+ labels a day. The app itself is styled with high contrast and readability / error-minimization in mind instead of gorgeous iOS end-user color scheme. So lots of red and green backgrounds instead of shades of beige.<p>If you can keep the user from having to go back to a computer after each task, it can save a tremendous amount of time and effort. Native iOS apps are great for AppStore users but in intranet environment, I vastly prefer HTML5 because not only can I test the app remotely, I can add any feature I want with minimal effort and show the user anything they need to see - from daily task list and current order status to inventory by bin location and empty bins.

I've written a fulfillment engine before. It is complicated and generally does not lend itself to reuse. The reason is because the problem space is usually very specific. Building a general solution that fits everyone is near impossible.<p>That said Amazon actually has a Fulfillment API. The real trick is integrating your fulfillment into all your other business processes.

Open source alternative for Android: <a href="https://github.com/Genshin/SpreeAndroid" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/Genshin/SpreeAndroid</a>

_The user enters how many boxes they want to pack and clicks Print, which prints a unique QR code inventory control label for each box. The packer affixes the QR code labels to the packed boxes, places them in the staging area, and moves onto the next box._<p>I've built a logistics system, where we did this until I realised that it is much more convenient to have a roll of pre-printed labels, that are scanned by the operator and then linked to a record in the application. You don't have to wait around for the printer to complete, you don't even have to input how many boxes you want to pack - You just point and scan. It also allows you to have the labels attached to the boxes in advance (or printed on). You can buy a roll of pre-printed bar codes for cheap, from print shops etc.<p>In general, I found that "reversing the order of control" works very well. Instead of having the system tell the operator what to do (which would be a natural solution from a software perspective), it's often much more flexible and efficient to have the operator tell the system what he did and then deal with that.

Its amazing how much people love their phones. What's the bet the warehouse employees want to supply their own phone, just so they can touch it all day.<p>I was involved in a project where we had to build an iOS UI for wholesale electricity traders, because the traders really wanted to be able to do their work from their phones. It wasn't driven by a business need, the starting premise was 'we need to be able to make trades from our phones', and then some waffle was constructed to justify the project.

Is... is your "warehouse" a spare room in your office?<p>The use of the amazon warehouse image is a funny comparison.<p>"Fake it 'til you make it" I guess.

That's a great solution and a great starting point for further optimizaion in the future.<p>As mentioned here before, I was surprised to see that this is no shipping/inventory solution for small businesses. I've searched a lot and all I can find is high end solutions for large enterprises.

Any advice on software / best practices for improving warehouse packing efficiency and accuracy? And inventory management?<p>We've got a warehouse that has hundreds of SKUs and processes tens of thousands of orders a day, but we're not very good at it yet.

Bryan, the font on your app site seems broken for me on Chrome/Windows 7. Screenshot: <a href="http://i.imgur.com/jkUkD.png" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/jkUkD.png</a>

Bryan, out of curiosity, apart from the IOS app, which web platform has order fulfillment system been developed on?