Why Location Setup Matters
Your warehouse location scheme is the foundation of efficient operations. Every putaway, pick, move, and count starts with a location ID, so the scheme you choose is what your team reads all day. A well-designed system pays off in several ways:
- Faster picks and putaways through logical location sequencing
- Shorter training, because new workers can read a location ID and find it
- More accurate inventory, because every unit is tracked to a specific place
- A smoother WMS implementation with fewer data corrections
- Room to grow without redesigning the scheme
Rocket directs the work location by location. Pickers are sent to each location in turn, replenishment moves name the forward-pick location to refill, and a cycle count walks the operator to every location holding the product being counted. A clear scheme makes every one of those tasks faster to follow.
Anatomy of a Location ID
Each location ID should tell a complete story of where inventory lives. A consistent format makes navigation intuitive and reduces picking errors.
Location ID Best Practices
- Use one delimiter everywhere. Hyphens read more clearly than dots or slashes.
- Pad numbers to a fixed width (aisle 03, not 3) so IDs line up and sort correctly in lists and reports.
- Keep it readable. Short zone codes beat cryptic abbreviations.
- Avoid letters that are easy to confuse with numbers, such as O and I.
- Match physical signage to the system exactly.
- Document zone codes in a reference sheet for all staff.
Building Your Location Hierarchy
Define each level of your warehouse to create a logical, navigable structure:
- Zones (Functional Areas)Common zones: Receiving (RC), Main Storage (MS), Overflow (OF), Quarantine (QR), Staging (ST), Packing (PK), and Shipping (SH).
- Aisles (Main Pathways)Number aisles in the order people walk them. If you expect to add aisles, leave gaps (01, 03, 05) so new ones fit without renumbering.
- Levels (Vertical Height)Start with 0 for the floor and count upward (1, 2, 3). Keep fast-moving items at levels people can reach without equipment.
- Bays and Positions (Precise Location)Use a direction for the bay, such as Left (L), Right (R), or Center (C), then a number for the position within it. R2 means right bay, second position.
Above the zone sits the site. Each warehouse is its own site in Rocket, users are scoped to the sites they work in, and a site switcher in the app bar changes which warehouse you are looking at. If you run more than one building, settle the zone codes once and reuse them at every site so a location ID means the same thing everywhere.
Creating Pick Flow That Makes Sense
Pick flow determines how efficiently workers move through the warehouse. Number your aisles so that walking them in order is also the shortest sensible route.
Key Pick Flow Principles
- A serpentine pattern minimizes backtracking and total travel distance.
- Place high-velocity items near packing and shipping to reduce picker travel.
- Allow for equipment turning radius when spacing aisles.
Every location carries a pick-flow value, and Rocket orders a picker’s stops by it. Number pick flow along your serpentine path and the picking work follows the same route.
Giving Each Location a Job
Not every location does the same work. Decide what each one is for before you create it, because that decision drives where stock is put away and where it is picked from.
Forward-pick locations carry warning and critical thresholds, set per item or per location, with a maximum quantity to refill to. When a forward-pick location drops to its warning level, Rocket creates the replenishment move automatically and directs an operator to fill it. Locations can also carry a pallet limit, and pallets travel as license plates, so a whole pallet can be picked onto, moved, or shipped as one unit without mixing lots.
Plan physical constraints into the scheme as well: which locations can hold frozen or refrigerated stock, which are approved for hazardous materials, and which can take heavy or oversized items. Putting the rule in the location layout means nobody has to remember it.
Constraints like these are set up as item classes. Create a class such as Frozen or Hazmat, assign it to the items it applies to, and limit each location to the classes it may hold. If someone tries to put an item away in a location that does not allow its class, Rocket refuses the putaway.
Each location also has a type (storage, staging, inspection, hospital, pick-and-drop, or dock door) and can be set to hold a single item or several.
Staging and Exception Locations
Dedicated staging locations act as buffers between major warehouse processes. They prevent bottlenecks and keep inventory moving. Give each one an ID in the same format as the rest of the warehouse.
Items that require inspection are received straight onto a hold and routed to an inspection location, and held stock cannot be allocated to an order. When a picker cannot pick, Rocket moves the stock to a hospital location, holds the source location, and triggers a cycle count. Finished pallets are dropped in a staging lane, and if a picker drops short of staging, Rocket creates the move work for someone else to finish.
Labeling Your Locations
A location scheme only works if people can scan it. Put durable, scannable labels at eye level on every location, and make the printed ID match the system exactly. Poor labeling undermines great location design.
Rocket prints barcode labels in 16 symbologies, including Code 128 and QR, on Avery, Zebra, and Uline label stocks, with a live preview before anything prints. It can also print directly to Zebra thermal printers. On a directed move, scanning the wrong destination brings up an expected-versus-scanned confirmation instead of a silent error, which is one more reason to label every location clearly.
Setting Up Locations in Rocket
Once the scheme is designed on paper, setup in Rocket follows the same order:
- Create your sitesOne per warehouse, and scope each user to the sites they work in.
- Define item classesFor example Frozen, Hazmat, or Oversized, so each location can be limited to the products it is suitable for.
- Create your locationsUsing the ID format you designed. For each one, set its type, pick-flow value, whether it holds one item or several, whether it is a forward-pick location, whether pallets must be scanned by license plate (with a pallet limit), and which item classes it accepts. Locations can be added one at a time or uploaded together from a CSV file, so a scheme planned in a spreadsheet goes straight in.
- Set thresholdsWarning and critical levels and a refill quantity for forward-pick stock. Thresholds can be copied from one site to another.
- Print and hang labelsThen walk a few real picks and putaways before go-live.
During implementation, our team trains yours on this setup. See how inventory management works in Rocket.
Final Tips Before Go-Live
- Document everythingKeep a location reference sheet with zone codes, numbering rules, and the job each location does. Share it with all staff and keep it current.
- Test before go-liveWalk through actual picking and putaway scenarios. Find the confusing spots and fix them before launch.
- Plan for scaleLeave numbering gaps where you expect to grow, so new locations fit without renumbering existing stock.
- Involve your teamAsk pickers, receivers, and operators to review the layout. They know where the pain points are.