TapeTrack uses a Slotting system that can track which Slot a Volume is in for picking, track what Slot you are placing a Volume in while packing, or automatically assign Slots for your Volumes based on several different algorithms including first available and intellislot.
To aid operators in locating the correct Slots racking is divided up into Zones, Shelves and Slots.
To help visualize the dissection of your storage from total storage racks all the way down to Slot numbering we will use 3 ProMedia cabinets to represent the total storage available. One cabinet of 10 drawers, one 7 drawer and a 5 drawer, stacked into two vertical columns. Each Column is represented as a group of Zones, eg Red and Green.
The same concept applies to other forms of storage racking, whether it is GemTrac racks,
safes,
or racks with open shelves etc.
Each Zone group is then divided up in to Zones, each with its own unique identity known as a Zone-ID.
For the ProMedia cabinet, each Zone is a drawer and for this example will be labelled Red-1 to Red 12.
Each Zone is then divided into Shelves, rows or equivalent.
For the ProMedia cabinets, each drawer is divided into 6 rows, each of these are numbered accordingly 1 to 6 in each Zone (drawer). Storage such as GemTrac racks would be divided into shelves as the drawers are vertical, but the concept is the same.
Each row, or shelf is then divided into Slots. Most racking has dividers that allow one Volume per Slot. These Slots are numbered from 1 to the last slot number per row or shelf, in the case of the ProMedia cabinet 1 to 18 for each row.
If you use storage, such as a small fire safe, that has shelves but no dedicated Slots TapeTrack can be configured to show you the Zone and shelf but not the Slot. This allows you to place Volumes on the shelves but not worry about balancing them in a Slot location. TapeTrack would display, as an example, Red 3, which translates as the Red fire safe, 3rd shelf.
On the racking, it would translate the same, Red racking, third shelf but no Slot number.
Using this system, to locate a Volume the information in TapeTrack will tell you:
Using a ProMedia cabinet as an example, TapeTrack would represent the Second ProMedia drawer (Zone-ID Red-2), 3rd row across, 4th Slot in as Red-2 3.4.
Labelling your racking using the correct method allows the operator to quickly locate the Volume knowing which drawer to open and which shelf and Slot it is on, as opposed having to mentally calculate which drawer and shelf Slot 148 is in. The more storage racks you use the more difficult this calculation process gets, eg where is Slot 1196, TapeTrack representation (when configured correctly) would display which Zone, shelf and Slot the Volume is in.