Warehouse software can greatly increase productivity
Productivity is key to warehousing success and installing the perfect warehouse software solution for your needs is the number one secret to productivity. So what are the factors that could be causing major losses to warehousing productivity:
Warehouse Layout
Warehouse layout is crucial to ensuring productivity. While loading and offloading of goods to be stored has a big impact on space utilisation and efficiency, you need to consider other factors as well, such as how far is the printer from employees’ desks, how long does it take for a person to walk from the managers desk to their own- while these factors may seem unimportant, Logistics Management reports that by eliminating just 6 minutes of walking per hour, thousands of dollars can be saved over the course of a year.
Administrative Tasks
Consider which administrative tasks are currently your biggest headaches. Are you struggling with capturing waybills, is it hard for you to work out the time of delivery of parcels or to stick to the times promised, is it a timely task to capture all of the items entering and exiting the warehouse?
Are employees spending numerous hours trying to capture financial data by synchronising data from suppliers and customers?
Administration can swallow a big chunk of warehousing resources with regard to time and finances. Owing to logistics software, solutions are available to assist with automatic capturing, synchronizing and organising of data.
Technology
Implementing a warehouse software system into the warehousing environment is an excellent step towards improved productivity. However, it is important to remember that technology has to stay updated and you need to collaborate with your software supplier to ensure that your warehouse software continuously caters to your growing and dynamic needs.
Further, also consider other warehousing technologies available which could increase efficiencies. While this may seem costly at first, consider the return on investment which these technologies, such as RFID printing and labeling and handheld scanners, will enable.
Downtime
Employee sick days, machinery downtime, fleet downtime and software malfunctions can all be extremely costly. While downtime is not always avoidable, use warehouse software to ensure timely and adequate maintenance on fleets and machinery and to test the effectiveness of machinery which could indicate problems sooner when efficiency levels go down.