Fulfilling the everyday requests and tasks of a warehouse operation is not exactly the highest profile of jobs within an enterprise. Quite often it’s actually taken for granted or not given much thought or top of mind. Until it is.
Everything from order requests, restocking, picking along with a wide variety of other tasks are essential to smooth operations. The slightest speed bump in any given process can cause major issues and delays. Avoiding these types of issues can often be achieved best by having a dedicated warehouse management solution to consolidate warehousing operations and to streamline and automate processes.
Automating processes has the advantages of freeing up an individual’s time and perhaps more importantly significantly reducing the chances of errors occurring. This in turn results in quicker turnaround times, more process efficiency and greater profitability. Rather than manually having to plan out and manage daily/weekly scheduled work items these processes can begin to be prioritized and updated through use of key data points, which are automatically updated regularly and in real-time. As well key notifications on restock thresholds, negating duplicate orders, communicating with vendors and carriers and other key links within the logistics supply chain can be optimized so that these tasks run smoothly in the background and are on hand when needed.
This increases organizational planning efficiency and allows management to be proactive and less reactive. It also allows for warehousing at scale, something of a problem when managing operations with spread sheets. Most breakdowns in a warehousing day to day often occur due to the unexpected or poor communication and tabulation of information. This isn’t unique either and is often seen industry wide. Inefficient inventory processes will exacerbate these problems.
Fortunately, technology is being leveraged as never before in the inventory and warehouse management field. It’s making our logistic supply chains more efficient, allowing for greater chain of custody and giving organizations greater flexibility to deal with changing landscapes. It’s not something often talked about, and in our experience often overlooked when compared to other parts of enterprise and business planning. Thankfully as recent supply chain issues are coming to light the industry is catching on and there is a unique opportunity for beneficial change.