Warehouse Dispatch

Year after year, the largest companies in the world are surveyed in an effort to discover the secret to their success. One key element that pops up across all of these surveys is supply chain effectiveness and warehouse management. When we read about these companies and how they are managing to deliver incredible products to their customers day in and day out, we are able to see a few trends in the way they handle their supply chain. Here are a few of the secrets we have discovered:

When it comes to inventory counting, there is a lot of vocabulary to learn. You may have heard the terms "perpetual" and "periodic" being used in reference to your count. In the past, an annual physical inventory was considered to be a periodic inventory because the inventory was only counted once per counting period. Cycle counting is considered perpetual because updates happen on a continual basis. However, even within cycle counting, your inventory may be periodic or perpetual. Here's how:

There are several reasons that cycle counting is better than performing physical inventory counts. Unfortunately, many people dread inventory so much that the idea of being locked in perpetual inventory counting mode is scary. Here are a few reasons that you should stop fearing cycle counting and start thinking about how it will help you.

When we think about quality control, we most often think of the process of manufacturing goods. However, in a warehouse environment, quality control actually refers to the quality of the orders you are shipping out. Since order fulfillment is your service, you need to guarantee the quality of those orders before they go out the door. Fortunately, adding quality control can actually have a positive impact on your warehouse efficiency.

There is one truth that shines through all matters of warehouse efficiency: you can't improve your warehouse without measuring your activity. Warehouse replenishment comes with its own set of metrics and guidelines that you should be keeping an eye on. Hopefully, your WMS helps you accomplish this by providing a handy dashboard for tracking trends and important stats.

When it comes to managing your warehouse, there are some basic do's and don'ts that you should be aware of. Your replenishment department especially needs to know how to handle materials safely, and how to reduce inefficiencies at every possible turn.

Here are a few major areas for your replenishment team to consider:

Having forward picking locations that are periodically replenished out of a bulk zone can boost efficiency greatly. There are some situations though where that strategy leads to inefficiency and duplicated efforts. In these cases, using common bin locations in your forward staging area may be a great way to cut down on contacts and movement of your products. Let's discuss some of these scenarios.

In an effort to cut any remaining fat from your warehouse operations and streamline your processes, the idea of forward staging some items may have arisen. This practice helps divert some items from the regular replenishment stream and saves you steps. It can also help you save space by keeping fewer products in shelf locations when they are headed right back out the door. But how efficient can this process really be?

Too often we hear managers talking about warehouse replenishment and fulfillment using the terms interchangeably. These two terms actually refer to different parts of your warehouse process, and in order to manage each area of your warehouse effectively, you need to understand what they are and what unique challenges they present. Let's take a look at both warehouse replenishment and fulfillment to get a better grasp of what each term means.

We've talked extensively about using your warehouse management system to implement a cycle counting program for your warehouse. One thing we haven't discussed is how different warehouse management programs can affect the quality of your cycle counting results. Not all systems are the same. In truth, there are several features that may make one better for cycle counting than another.