Managing a warehouse effectively with manual, paper-based processes or legacy fulfillment systems is not a piece of cake. It involves a huge collection of daunting and time-consuming tasks.
From inventory receiving to pick-pack-ship workflows, to order shipment; warehouse teams have to deal with all aspects of warehouse management manually. It not only adds to the burden of an already strapped staff, but also results in manual errors or mistakes. —In order to streamline warehouse management, Marc @ PalletRackingSuppliers recommends investing in automated solutions that can help reduce the time and effort needed to manage inventory receiving. Automation can help reduce manual errors and mistakes and allow warehouse teams to focus on other aspects of their work.
The best solution to streamline the warehouse’s management process is the use of a dedicated cloud-based warehouse management system. This software brings multiple benefits to both warehouse managers and the company.
It lowers the labor burden by automating the most hectic tasks including layout planning, real-time inventory and order tracking, pick-pack-ship processes, performance KPIs, and provides excellent customer service.
Key Functions of Warehouse Management System
There is a wide variety of warehouse management software in the market to choose from. Each system is designed for a specific type of business. Therefore, the features, functions, or applications are quite different.
However, every type of warehouse management system shares some common features which are crucial to fulfilling the basic needs or requirements of different warehouses.
The most common and important features of a dedicated warehouse management system are:
1. Warehouse Layout Planning
One of the most difficult tasks in warehouse organization is layout planning. It not only consumes a lot of time but also requires a technical approach. Your warehouse layout directly impacts space utilization, labor costs, and shipping time.
Implementation of the warehouse management provides them with strategic layout planning. The software helps warehouse managers to keep the warehouse safe, mess free, and organized for max efficiency.
It automatically analyzes the need for inventory, labor operations, and other tasks. Therefore, it preserves the precious time of the staff so they can handle more volumes faster and with greater precision.
2. Inventory and Order Tracking
The most crucial and complicated task in running a warehouse is keeping track of inventory. It involves a lot of calculations and monitoring of available incoming and outgoing stock. Warehouse teams struggle hard to avoid errors or mistakes and keep accurate order tracking. But the use of warehouse management software can create ease for them.
These effective tools provide teams with all details about real-time available inventory, customer demand signals, labeling requirements and expiry dates, locations, and sales insights. Moreover, it also provides easy access to any product via barcode scanning and automatic syncing. This reduces the picking and shipping times, while cutting down on labor costs and mistakes.
3. Labor Management
Employees play a significant role in the effective management and optimization of warehouses. However, managing the workforce, monitoring their work progress, and optimizing their work is a time-consuming as well as hectic task. Therefore, labor management is also a crucial feature of the warehouse management system.
Warehouse management software keeps track of employees’ tasks, performance metrics, and recommendations for improvement. Moreover, it also lowers laborers’ workload by providing them with advanced tools to track different products, orders, and shipping processes. Its time-tracking feature provides laborers with easy access to time-critical decisions, which boosts their working potential along with staff retention and related risk.
4. Paperless Workflows
Inventory data must remain accessible, accurate, and secure. Dealing with massive calculations, papers, and files is a hectic and risky task. Missing pick lists, invoices, order details, and other documents can cause great trouble not only for the manager but the entire business. Therefore, an effective warehouse management system must have paperless picking and workflows.
A paperless warehouse management system keeps all the data including employee details, real-time inventory information, and customer order details all in one easy-to-use place. And provides all stakeholders with easy access to crucial data in a single view that can be scaled easily across multiple locations and even upstream suppliers.
5. Real-time Reporting
Another important feature of modern warehouse management systems, such as Deposco, is real-time reporting. The warehouse management system provides instant inventory insights, shipping details, and order tracking. Moreover, it also provides data analysis of the cost-to-profit value, employees’ work progress specific to your defined KPIs, and growth rate of the business. It all results in more productivity and revenue growth at a lower cost.
Takeaways
After going through this article, you are well aware of all the crucial features or functions of an effective warehouse management system. Make sure to select the best software for your warehouse to ensure rapid ROI from your decision.
Make sure to choose a reliable platform to ensure the right use of time, money, and effort. It will not only help you to reap more productive results for your company but will also boost the working ability of your workforce, ensuring solid improvements and scalability year after year.
