Effective management of people and use of right technologies, are some of the key factors for smooth warehousing operations. While many people perceive this practice as merely arranging inventories such that they can be found easily, actually it is more than that.
Using the right warehouse planning, smooth warehousing operations guarantee maximum productivity with minimum cost, time, and energy. Paying attention to every detail during the process requires great effort. Below are ten applicable practices to improve warehouse operations:
- Manage the organisation
Before the products arrive at the warehouse to stock it up, you need to make an arrangement plan by mapping out the warehouse position, width, and capacity such that it can be used effectively. With smart organisation, even narrow spaces can take in more products. To make both receiving and picking processes run smoothly and effectively, you need to establish a logical system that can be used to organise the products in defined order.
- Train the staff
Since you cannot do all the work alone, you need helping hands who are passionate about making a career in inventory management and logistics. Training your staff for pre-plan preparations would help avoid any communication gaps and misinterpretation of information during warehousing operation.
- Use quality control
When products are both coming in and out of the warehouse, make sure that every component has been checked twice. Appoint one of the employees for quality control, whose responsibilities include ensuring that every order has the standardised quality and quantity before it is shipped to the customers.
- Record Keeping
Listing down the products and record the inventory, this will make it easier to control stocks for easy accessibility. For example, when you find that product A is among the best seller items, you need to stack them in an easy-to-reach space within the warehouse, so it can be shipped quickly. By doing so, you will save labour time and energy from unnecessary commotion, not to mention the trouble of relocation.
- Distribute labelling
Putting labels for every product is simple. It does not require complicated application and is of great help when it comes to warehouse operations. You can create your own labelling system or use labelling software that can be customised to meet your business needs.
- Choose suitable software and application
Nowadays, adequate options of software and applications are available to increase productivity. Technology such as barcodes and radio frequency will improve accuracy and efficiency.
- Use automatic data collection
Making use of automatic data collection would prevent errors and mistakes caused by manual collection. In addition, it also increases productivity and accuracy. Apply the same strategy to data entry as well to prevent any room for errors in inventory record.
- Keep safety as priority
Keeping healthy and safety work environment is crucial for smooth warehousing operations. Even during times of tight schedule, encourage your employees to not rush, but do their job carefully. The warehouse should be designed to meet the health and safety standards, and monitored to prevent injuries or accidents.
- Use asset tracking system
Maximise warehouse productivity by using asset tracking system. This will help recording the number of times an inventory is picked during particular times of the day and night.
- Avoid procrastination
Do not wait for tomorrow if you can do it today. For example, if you find defective products that are needed to be sort out separately, then do it at the moment. People forget easily, so putting it aside and doing it later will only increase the possibility of it, being overlooked. And when needed in the future, you just realise that it cannot be used anymore.
This article was first published here.