SOPWAREHOUSESOP

WMS Downtime and Manual Operations

Paper-based manual operating procedure for outages of the WMS, network, or RF scanners, covering who declares downtime and at what severity tier, the pre-staged downtime kit, manual receiving, picking, and shipping with two-person verification in place of scan verification, the transactions deliberately not performed on paper, the timestamp-ordered re-entry and reconciliation of every paper transaction when systems return, the post-outage variance count, and the twice-yearly downtime drill.

Audience
Operations managers, shift supervisors, receiving and shipping leads, inventory control, and every associate who receives, picks, packs, or ships during a system outage
Review cycle
semiannual
Last reviewed
2026-08-17
Revision
1

What is in the procedure

11 sections. Regulatory language is fixed and passes through verbatim. Sections marked customized get rewritten around your facility, your equipment, and your job titles.

  1. 01

    Purpose

    Fixed

    This procedure keeps the building working, safely and accountably, when the warehouse management system, the network, or the RF scanners are down.

  2. 02

    Scope

    Customized

    This procedure applies whenever the warehouse management system, the facility network, the RF scanner fleet, or label printing is unavailable or unreliable, whether from a software failure, a network or internet outage...

  3. 03

    Responsibilities

    Customized

    One named leader, and only that leader, declares the start of downtime, sets the severity tier, and declares the end of downtime; nobody self-starts paper operations because a scanner froze.

  4. 04

    Procedure: Declaring Downtime and Setting the Tier

    Customized

    1. Anyone who finds a system unresponsive reports it to their supervisor immediately and stops guessing at workarounds.

  5. 05

    The Downtime Kit

    Customized

    The downtime kit is a sealed, labeled container holding everything needed to run the floor on paper, staged at a fixed location known to every supervisor.

  6. 06

    Procedure: Manual Receiving

    Fixed

    Physical receiving does not change: trailers are secured, inspected, and unloaded exactly per the Receiving: Inbound Trailer Unloading SOP.

  7. 07

    Procedure: Manual Picking and Shipping

    Customized

    1. The order set comes from one of two sources: the printed open-order set if one was produced before the failure, or orders received during the outage by phone or email, each written onto an order intake sheet from the...

  8. 08

    What Is Deliberately Not Done During Downtime

    Fixed

    Some transactions are worth doing on paper because freight and orders cannot wait.

  9. 09

    Procedure: Recovery and Re-entry

    Customized

    Systems returning is not the end of downtime; a clean record is.

  10. 10

    Post-Outage Variance Count and Downtime Drills

    Customized

    Variance count: after every Tier 2 or Tier 3 downtime, inventory control counts every location touched during the outage, meaning every put location on the receiving logs, every pick location on the pick forms, and...

  11. 11

    References

    Fixed

    Receiving: Inbound Trailer Unloading SOP, whose physical securement, inspection, and unloading steps remain in force during downtime.

Best practice

WMS Downtime and Manual Operations: no regulation to cite

No public-domain regulation governs this procedure, so it cites nothing rather than inventing authority. It documents the process discipline customers, insurers, and auditors ask to see in writing.

Compliance checklist

What an inspector looks for

  • Downtime is declared, tiered, and ended only by the authorized title, with start time, tier changes, and end time recorded on the downtime event log

  • The downtime kit is sealed, staged at its assigned location, inspected after every use and drill, and its pick-face map carries a print date within the set cadence

  • Every manual receipt is logged with PO or shipment reference, item, quantity, condition, and the actual put location, written at the moment of putaway

  • Every downtime order is picked from a written pick form and verified line by line by a second associate, with both picker and checker initials, before it ships

  • Every downtime shipment leaves on a numbered manual BOL and is recorded on the carrier handoff log with a driver signature

  • No inventory adjustment, returns disposition, or new client item setup is performed during downtime, and any approved exception is written on the downtime event log

  • During a Tier 3 outage, shipping is stopped until the declarer confirms the order data is trustworthy

  • After recovery, the single recovery owner keys every paper transaction in timestamp order, and a second person reconciles the paper against the keyed entries, before normal work resumes

  • Every location touched during the outage is variance counted within the facility's set window, and the full paper set is retained

  • A downtime drill is held twice a year, the kit is audited at each drill, and drill findings are fixed before the drill is closed

Waitlist

Generate this SOP for your facility

At launch you answer the facility questionnaire once and this template comes back with your equipment, your titles, and your sign-off sheet attached.

First access at launch, plus launch pricing locked for a year.

This page is informational and is not legal advice. Have a qualified safety professional review any procedure before it goes into service at your facility.