Inventory Accuracy

Knowing what you have in your warehouse at any given moment is crucial. While it is common for a distribution center to have a disparity between what is actually on the shelves and what is recorded in the management system, it is important to implement systems that keep that disparity from getting out of hand. Allowing the difference to become too great, will result in spoilage, overstocking, or accepting orders for items that are not actually available. Regular audits of your stock against your database are highly advised. By identifying items that are regularly overstocked or understocked, you will be able to track down specific problems that are leading to unnecessary costs.

Replenishment

Replenishment is measured by how well your inventory moves from reserve storage to active picking bins. Understanding your replenishment metrics will allow you to make better, more efficient decisions about what inventory to replace and when to replace it. For example, If space is limited, you can  improve efficiency by prioritizing stock with a higher replenishment profit.

Order Accuracy

Increasing the order accuracy of your warehouse to nearly 100% is an important benchmark to reach. After all, ensuring the customer receives what they ordered is the baseline target for any fulfillment center.

Dead Stock

Dead stock is an often overlooked efficiency killer.  If you streamline your warehouse operations but fail to purge products that have become damaged or otherwise unsellable, also known as dead stock, your facility is paying to store items that will never provide revenue. Therefore, keeping track of dead inventory and finding low cost methods of moving it, is a must. Ikea uses one of our favorite creative ways of moving dead stock, they have created a yard sale space where customers can purchase individual parts of broken items for do-it-yourself type projects. Before paying a trash removal company to dispose of dead stock, consider ways to create incentives for customers or community members to help you reduce costs.

Warehouse Layout

The way your available space is laid out can significantly affect order-picking productivity. This will vary depending on the type of warehouse you’re operating, but in all cases, minimizing your pickers’ travel time with a good slotting strategy will have a positive outcome for order fulfillment and workflow. Additionally, equipment such as ergonomic order-picking carts and picker platforms that attach to forklifts help maximize the amount of product gathered in a single trip and the potential of vertical space. Pallet carts that train together can also be an effective way of moving multiple orders at once.

If your warehouse includes a manufacturing or assembly component, ensuring that workstations are organized and close to the storage space of necessary materials can save your workers time during set up and put away.

Is Automation a Necessity?

Warehouse technology continues to grow and improve. It used to be that pallet racks and forklifts were the only option available for material handling. However, automation has advanced the picking process with robotic warehouse workers and conveyors, minimizing downtime and creating cost savings for the right warehouse operation. With that being said, the initial investment and the restrictions required by the automated pickers can make the pricing of these advancements prohibitive.

Before investing in technological process improvements like automation, it’s a good idea to consider some alternative ways you could improve the efficiency of your warehouse with add-ons for the equipment you already have. If automation is the route your business needs to go, Nutting Carts and Trailers can manufacture custom carts, trailers, or stands to operate with your autonomous platform of choice.