Hello,

In UK National & Regional Distribution Centres the product stockholding is activated when the cashier swipes the item over the barcode reader in the till at the point of sale. Release orders are then placed on the suppliers in sympathy with the outgoings from the RDC's. There is plenty of proprietary software available for completing this kind of task & none of it has much to do with the bulk handling topics in these forums. Logistics in RDC operations mean that grass being eaten now will be semi-skimmed milk, or similar, on the supermarket shelf 600kms away within 36 hours, or else! Bulk solids handling just doesn't work like that: Sorry.

PS if you log on to engineering talk.com there was an article there last week concerning the selection of a particular software package by a/the major transport operation in China. ■