Speed, efficiency, accuracy, traceability and numerous other requirements are also beginning to appear in small and medium-sized warehouses. Many inventory management professionals are struggling with these development challenges today. You would not want to undertake large-scale and expensive projects, but are there alternatives? How to develop inventory management cost-effectively, quickly and avoid long projects without forgetting staff? How to prevent inventory operations from being a bottleneck for online shop?
Warehouse Operations To Meet The Requirements Of The Time
Internal and external factors drive development. The need to upgrade your warehousing solutions can arise in the short term. A typical example is when a company sets up or develops its e-commerce operations, and the warehouse operations need to be adapted to it. Existing customers’ demands for fast and accurate deliveries and fast traceability of deliveries also increase warehouse work.
Companies’ internal efficiency and quality requirements put their development pressures on warehouses:
- transparency and measurability for warehousing operations and processes
- improving efficiency to the level of other activities
- real-time and transparency
- improving balance accuracy without visual or manual verification (real-time)
- moving away from paperwork instructions
How To Develop Inventory Management?
There are several options for stock development. Outsourcing inventory as a strategic business solution can be slow and not always bring the desired benefits. Simply moving problems outside the company is not the best development solution. Depending on the root causes of the challenges, the opposite may be the case with outsourcing.
On the other hand, automation is quite expensive and requires a large number of products and repeatability of functions. The fastest solution in terms of schedule can be your own, well-limited software investment. Properly implemented and dimensioned, the warehouse management system will also help address the root causes of the challenges and address the critical development needs.
Easy To Use And Versatile Functions
The solution you choose should be easy to use and quick to learn and beneficial for online shop, which will help with changes in inventory capacity requirements. The visuality of the solution (e.g., product images) ensures the correctness of the functions, and through it, additional information can be provided to the warehouse worker.
Manage And Optimize Inventory Work
Job aggregation, optimization of collection routes, ABC analysis, and registration of balance errors and deviations are basic functionalities that you should look for in agile inventory management solutions. These allow the functions in the warehouse to be continuously improved.
Real-time monitoring and reporting of operations and historical data provide an overview of the various areas of warehouse operations. Features can be used, for example, for analysis and business development.
Measurable Benefits Quickly
The agile inventory management solution has brought 40% additional efficiency to warehouse work at its best. At the same time, the number of errors has dropped by as much as 80%.
The solution has several other benefits:
- activities real-time
- processes straightened out
- job satisfaction improved
- activity stagnated at all.
One additional way to increase job satisfaction is to motivate employees by combining the author’s interests and the company. One good element for this is gaming, which at the same time creates job satisfaction.
Development Project Management
An agile inventory management project and its implementation include a few basic things that will help the project run smoothly:
- It is a good idea to phase out the implementation so that only one function is activated at a time, for example, collection. After that, the other tasks are in stages. This has the advantage that employees can embrace one thing at a time.
- In addition to the basic specifications, implementing a project usually requires only minor checks or changes in the warehouse. Examples include checking storage location markings and telecommunications connections.
- It would be necessary for employees to be involved in the project from the beginning, such as testing the solution and selecting future equipment. Commitment is essential and can avoid potential resistance to change.