As your business expands, you will outgrow the warehouse facilities at one time. When this happens, you might decide to get a larger or an additional distribution center to meet the demands of the business. Many entrepreneurs categorize this as a good problem in the firm. If you find yourself in such a situation, it is important to ask yourself whether you have maximized the potential of what you already have.
Getting an additional or larger facility for your company can be extremely expensive and they are typically under-utilized at first. These projects also carry a significant risk, something you do not need in your growing business. purchasing property for an additional warehouse is typically done somewhere where you have to pay slim to nil property taxes. While this is a smart decision, it comes with potential draw backs. If your new warehouse is far away from a metropolitan area, you may want to look into rural communication solutions so that you’re still connected to the internet as well as customers and your other business locations. You’re also going to have to look into fuel efficient delivery trucks as you’ll most likely be moving lots of cargo in and out over long distances.
Relying only on paper trails and the manual data entry systems to manage your warehouse can be one of the reasons why it seems outgrown. The workers’ productivity and inventory accuracy are also compromised. The business experiences the following:
- Mis-shipments
- Inaccurate information from the warehouse system
- Delayed access to valuable information if it was entered days or weeks late
- Late invoices
- Hard time locating items as they are moved in the warehouse.
Automate your warehouse processes
Automating a full-time warehouse management system can be very costly. However, it will add a lot of value to your business. People who have automated their warehouses say that in just a few months; they experienced a lot of efficiency and productivity. Automating and streamlining your warehouse systems will help achieve real- time visibility into the inventory and orders, and it will also decrease the time it takes to invoice and receive all the customer payments.
Introducing a barcode scanning system in your warehouse can help you solve the problems you have been experiencing. It will help with the following functions in the business:
- Receiving – if you automate and streamline all your warehouse process, you will gain insight of all the shipments that have been delivered and those that have not been delivered. When doing this, it is important to ensure that the items at low stock are staged and put way first. This will reduce the impact of the out of stocks and also the inefficient fulfillment processes.
- Put-Away – it is important to know the location of all your stock on the shelves. Ensure that you route your employees in the right location and set up their picks in the correct way to reduce the travel time and increase the number of orders they can pick every day.
- Picking: automating your systems in the software will significantly improve error-proofing and also the productivity in the picking process. Your employees will receive their picks on a mobile device that routes them to the right location. When you scan the picked items, you will quickly identify that they are correct, and the right quantity has been used.
- Packing: automating your warehouse systems will ensure the accuracy of all the orders picked. The company will also reduce the material costs because the systems can determine the right size of the shipping carton.
- Shipping: all your orders will be properly packaged and shipped to the correct destination. These items will also be delivered at the right time, making all your customers happy.
Using the right warehouse management systems will greatly benefit your business. You will be able to electronically track and at the same time record all the movement and storage of the inventory and materials in your company. This will be a great way to streamline all your business processes. The right system will be able to capture data electronically by using barcode technologies. You will have control over the supply chain operations like put way, picking, packing and shipping.