Whether you are an e-commerce business or a manufacturer, the past few years have probably made you realize that your warehouse management processes need improvement.
Today, we will share methods to improve warehouse management. These tips are relevant both for companies planning to implement new technology and for companies simply planning a business process improvement initiative.
1. Schedule regular training
Regular training is essential to ensure your warehouse staff stay up-to-date on how accessing data insights can make their jobs easier.
For example, they should know how to access the information needed to process shipments as quickly as possible. When they can do so, processes flow more smoothly, partners are satisfied and customer relations are better.
Ideally, you have modern technology, so you don't have to deal with the wait times or lack of data integration associated with legacy and outdated systems.
2. Solve priority issues
At any given time, there are dozens of different issues going on, and managers can quickly become overwhelmed.
To facilitate quick action that needs to be delegated, take the time to determine which items need to be prioritized. Then, communicate that urgency to your team so everyone knows those are the tasks that need to be tackled first.
3. Improve instant information visibility
Your employees need to be able to clearly see all available inventory. With this visibility, you can speed up the order picking process because employees know exactly which stock keeping units (SKUs) are available, where they are located, and how many there are. When this data is accurate, you can ensure accurate SKU numbers are maintained, while reducing downtime.
Hopefully you have an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system with real-time monitoring capabilities. Users can leverage this data to understand historical trends and patterns, which helps them plan inventory and forecast sales to avoid problems related to overstocking or lack of goods.
4. Consider incorporating flexible management
If you have some items that need to be shipped quickly, consider skipping this process and sending them back as soon as they arrive.
This is called cross connection. It requires relabeling an item for shipping as soon as it enters the receiving dock. From there, it's right back to the dock.
This quick turnaround time helps you meet customer demands for faster shipping times. It also reduces rework for your warehouse staff and helps them process larger orders.
5. Optimize Labels
You might think you've optimized nearly every part of your warehouse labeling strategy. However, consider whether you can optimize it further because any wasted movement will add up.
Think about the total time you need to format, print, and apply the labels. The process should be smooth and simple, so try to eliminate unnecessary steps and look for tools that can help you automate this process to the greatest extent possible.
6. Apply Lean Warehouse Management Principles
When you reduce the time and effort required to manage your inventory, you can help prevent the following problems from occurring:
– Copy activities
– Low quality of order processing
– Excessive employee downtime
This means that following a lean warehouse model will reduce the total number of steps each employee must take to do their job.
For example, employees can optimize the order picking process based on:
– Inventory turnover rate
– Specific type of import and export activities
- Number of orders
– Generate lots and label
What will effective warehouse management improve?
Once you've outlined some high-level process improvements, you may need to start thinking about modernizing your IT systems. Many modern ERP and warehouse management systems come with built-in industry best practices that are likely to be a great fit for your business requirements, especially now that you've adjusted your processes with warehouse best practices.
By implementing a warehouse management system, manufacturing ERP system, or supply chain management system, you can streamline information flow and gain visibility into every aspect of your warehouse operations .
