Table of Contents
Making or breaking your business highly depends on your inventory. That’s why you need to have strict protocols in handling it. To enlighten you, we put up ways to improve your warehouse inventory management.
Understanding Warehouse Inventory Management
Warehouse inventory planning and management talks about the business processes. It involves organizing, tracking, and handling goods in the warehouse and distribution centers. These goods can be raw materials, items in production, or finished products.
Warehouse inventory management covers inventory in store shelves and stockrooms. Sometimes, it includes products in transit. In addition, it takes responsibility for legal and accounting purposes. Unfortunately, not all warehouse management offers this feature.
Moreover, warehouse inventory management is highly beneficial when it comes to accuracy. Also, it provides efficiency for order picking and packing. Furthermore, it has highlighted the effectiveness of counting inventory quantities and locations. Plus, it processes vital documents in the business like order sheets, bills of lading, and create invoice. In addition, it can handle product returns. Most importantly, warehouse inventory management calculates the amount of inventory you’ll need in the future. So it’s no surprise why most businessmen utilize it.
Business people are aware of how warehouse inventory management affects customer satisfaction. Inventory serves as a valuable asset. Without proper handling of in, manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers are bound to fail. On the other hand, if you can manage it correctly, retailers and eCommerce sellers can gain more from the working capital.
10 Best Practices of Warehouse Inventory Management
Do you want to ensure your eCommerce success? Then, learn ways how to improve the flow of your stocks. Here are quick tips about warehouse inventory management.
Reevaluate Warehouse Design
The warehouse layout facilitates an easy and logical inventory flow. You can monitor receiving and inspection during the picking and packing phase. For example, a cramped layout will result in difficulty in assessing stocks. Also, it leaves the room insufficient during essential procedures like receiving goods. If you see congestion, you might need to revise your warehouse design. Make sure you have enough space to accommodate a possible increase in company sales.
Welcome Automation
In the business world, technology is a must-have investment. It aids essential workflows like data collection, scanning, and barcoding. Also, it hastens the picking and packing procedure. The best part is that it assists during shipping and inventory tracking. Greater scalability is inevitable if you have automated warehouse inventory management. Also, it decreases the possibility of human error. So it saves you time and money for manual labor without compromising efficiency. However, you must stay vigilant even after the implementation of automation. Regular reevaluation is vital to see if you’re still on the right track to meeting the business standards.
Empower Employees
Employees are indispensable to the success of any business. So how can your goods move from the warehouse to your buying customers without them? So you must provide training and standard safety protocol to keep them from harm. For example, warehouse inventory management keeps their job a lot easier. In line with this, you must set a cleaning schedule at an optimal time. Also, organize strategic planning for product location. This way, your staff know where to pick high-volume goods.
Explore Wave Picking and Cross Docking
Wave picking means releasing specific orders for fulfillment based on a common denominator. Examples are similar shipping dates, products, and warehouse zone. Instead of adjusting pickers’ shifts, wave picking follows a set number of orders or meets the shipping deadline.
Cross-docking is an efficient system. It lets you unload products from inbound delivery trucks and load them onto outbound trucks. As a result, it reduces handling and storage time. Plus, it offers seamless warehouse inventory management.
If you adopt these two strategies, you can have an advanced tracking method. As a result, you save time and money and focus more on running an operation and your ROI.
Link Accuracy and Inventory Levels
Warehouse inventory management brings in the data about the way your products move in the warehouse. However, understanding the extracted details can be confusing and overwhelming. That’s why you must look for a simple yet easy-to-understand system that gathers data and analyzes results. For example, use leverage barcode scanners. It increases work speed, enters accurate data, and delivers excellent results for your company. In addition, it will help you eliminate unnecessary additional shift orders and inventory.
Familiarize Personal Identification
When you implement inventory tracking, include your employees too. It means you must also apply security protocols that track your staff. This way, you easily recognize non-employee individuals who try to access inventory. In addition, it is more manageable if you tag every employee with a barcode username. You can monitor all transactions made every day at any time. As a result, you can pinpoint and reward the fastest and most accurate employee. Moreover, you can reprimand and backtrack any lost or damaged inventory.
Apply Fixed and Movable Tracking
Warehouse inventory management talks about tracking both fixed and movable. Movable tracking involves movements of units and pallets from the supply chain moving around the warehouse. Meanwhile, fixed tracking helps in assigning and managing goods’ destinations. Combining these two allows you to enjoy seamless transactions with optimal results. Also, you can arrange protocols to avoid confusion.
Monitor High Sellers
An optimized warehouse inventory management keeps track of sales and orders for every item and customer. It comes in handy when acquiring insights about your inventory data about the best sellers. This way, you can strategize a better plan for finding and following them. Once you know the high sellers, you can move the inventory management. For example, you can pick more efficient storage and shipping for faster fulfillment. As a result, you satisfy big clients and increase ROI.
Use FIFO
FIFO (first in, first out) is inventory management almost known to all. It is a standard procedure that most business practices. Although some merchants use LIFO (last in, first out), what matters is the system applied. It depends on the settings you prefer for warehouse inventory management software. The result is admirable as long as you sell the actual cost of every product for each order.
Invest in Technology
Warehouse inventory management is a technological development in making your business grow. So when you choose software, you look for both the physical process and integration. A robust system includes fulfillment operations without glitches. It is possible if you outsource companies like Red Stag Fulfillment. It frees up your time and allows you to manage other business aspects. In addition, Red Stag offers handling of heavy, bulky, or high-value products.
As a result, you can grow and scale more.
Continuous product supply is a challenging task. But it is more manageable if you use warehouse inventory management. In addition, you can keep up with inventory demands if you partner with a trusted and reliable fulfillment company like Red Stag.
