The assignment
A sprinkler failure released water over several bays of a distribution centre overnight. Stock was affected across multiple racking levels, the operator needed the floor back quickly, and the warehouse management system showed what should have been on each pallet position rather than what actually was.
What made it difficult
Water losses in racking do not distribute evenly. Stock directly under and downwind of the failure is saturated; two bays away the same product may be untouched; and cartons wick moisture upward from the floor long after the water has gone. Counting from the WMS extract would have produced a tidy number and the wrong one, because the extract describes intent and the floor describes fact.
What was recorded
Stock was counted at pallet level by product and quantity, position by position, with the exposure pattern recorded rather than assumed. Cartons were opened where the outer packaging was wet and the product was not. Racking, conveyors, forklifts and material-handling equipment were inventoried separately and assessed for structural damage, because compromised racking is a safety question before it is a claim question.
Outcome
A meaningful proportion of the stock turned out to be packaging-damaged rather than product-damaged. Sorted and documented by condition, that product went to liquidation buyers at a materially better figure than a whole-floor offer would have produced, and the operator got the affected bays cleared on a schedule that let the building keep running.