Learn how businesses and warehouses can manage their inventory and fulfill orders, faster, better and more accurately with mobile scanning.
Businesses are now more than ever looking for ways to improve warehouse and fulfillment efficiency. As rising demand for commerce orders continue this has given added incentive for warehousing and inventory operations to meet this rise. Considering how e-commerce and commerce sales continue to see double digit growth year over year it’s up to warehousing/fulfillment centers to deliver.
Evidently this requires increased efficiency and accuracy to keep up with demand and ensure customer satisfaction. One of the ways warehouses can increase efficiency is by implementing mobile scanning. Interestingly enough, some estimates figure that only about half of businesses use mobile scanners in their warehouse inventory operations.
One of the core contributing factors of warehousing and inventory management inefficiency are the reliance on manual processes. These are inherently time consuming, open to error and have a direct impact on turnaround time.
Lack of real-time data visibility is also a problem. If a business relies solely on manual records (which are also highly susceptible to error) the ability to have an accurate view of inventory without say, allocating that same inventory to other orders, can become problematic.
This then leads to inaccuracies in fulfillment such as mispicks, where orders subsequently leave a warehouse and are invariably returned. Of course, the customer is unsatisfied but on top of that the additional costs for returns and reshipping, not to mention employees having to redo the same order directly affects a business’ bottom line.
Mobile scanning adoption helps automate manual processes and increases efficiency. Mobile scanning applications such as Akatia’s WAM Mobile give businesses control over how processes are performed, ensure accuracy, allow for accurate real-time data visibility, and ultimately reduce costs. For example, something as simple as the concept of “force scanning” which requires a worker to scan the right details at given points within a process (i.e. whether receiving, picking or shipping) increases the integrity of both the process and data.
Using mobile scanners immediately and systemically updates inventory records as items are scanned and makes them available for subsequent processes. In WAM Mobile’s case the data scanned is automatically updated immediately from the scanner to a companies Salesforce org allowing all departments involved easy visibility and ready accessibility.
It’s amazing how by isolating and introducing a new way of doing things, something as simple and cost effective as introducing scanning technology can have such positive results. It also starts to become fairly evident how mobile scanning can literally change the way a warehouse operates and at a significant return on investment ratio. By implementing a warehouse management system such as Akatia’s WAM for Salesforce along with our scanner application a business can begin to tighten their processes and increase efficiency while eliminating costly errors.