Does everything in your supply chain revolve around your distribution centre?

It’s not unusual to find in many supply chain operations the performance in the warehouse has a major bearing on the rest of the company. So it is of paramount importance that your warehouse operates as efficiently as possible. It‘s common sense.

Efficiency in the warehouse begins with control – controlling goods in, putaways, stock movements, picking, replenishments and despatch. Any warehouse can of course be controlled by well-practised home grown methods such as paper delivery notes at the point of goods inwards, followed by more paper for putaways, paper pick notes, manual entry of stock on to a spreadsheet, a paper load plan for the despatch bay or goods outwards.

The problem with these old fashioned, so called “tried and trusted” methods is that they are all open to errors as they are all manually controlled by humans. They are often time consuming, expensive, and can cause a lot of unnecessary work due to mis-picks. This sometimes results in another team of warehouse operatives checking orders before despatch. Not the best advert for efficiency.

For an efficient, effective and ultimately economically controlled warehouse, it is recommended that a Warehouse Management System (WMS) is put in place, preferably a RF Directed WMS. RF WMS utilise barcodes enabling scanning at every stage, meaning errors are minimised and identified immediately.

WMS Systems that include warehouse mapping, or slotting, can shorten routes around the warehouse to match a logical pick sequence, send the right forklift truck with the right qualified driver to the nearest available pick/zone, and can be task interleaved so that picking and replenishments are completed by the same operative reducing empty trips. The WMS will not allow the wrong item to be picked, eliminating picking errors.

There are major time and labour savings due to increased efficiency, however an often overlooked efficiency gain results from forklifts taking logically sequenced routes around the warehouse. By making fewer stops, gaining time, using less fuel, and less wear and tear on the truck itself you are lengthening the life of your forklifts.

A Voice Picking WMS can increase efficiency even further as operatives have both hands and eyes free for picking and are not fumbling around for paper or RF scanners. This is best suited to a environment where both hands are needed to pick items or in cold stores. In some cases a Voice Picking WMS can also be used at Goods in, for replenishments and at despatch, eliminating the need for scanning, or used in a combination with scanning for maximum efficiency.

Ultimate efficiency comes from a fully integrated supply chain where your WMS is interfaced to your eCommerce, ERP, sales order processing and transport management systems giving as much control and as little human intervention as possible.

The management team also gains an overview of their complete operation, only making or ordering stock when needed, and shipping correctly fulfilled orders to their customers. This results in improved service levels, increased customer satisfaction and enhanced word of mouth reputation.

It is without doubt that in this frantic world we now find ourselves living in, with consumers having the “I want this yesterday” mentality, technology plays a vital role in delivering control, and making a technology triple E happen: Efficient, Effective and Economic systems for the benefit of all.

To see how Proteus WMS can help your business give us a call or send us an email.