When you first looked at the price tag of automating your warehouse management, you probably took a pause for a moment. Automating can be a costly endeavor and sometimes the upfront cost seems so egregious that it's hard to imagine how it would ever pay off. However, time and again, we see that automated systems provide savings to warehouses in several areas.

Reduced Labor

Your labor costs are the most obvious of the savings that come with automating. By switching much of the work to a machine, you are able to pay a handful of operators instead of paying many more full-time employees. On top of that, those machines don't require benefits and retirement plans, and management doesn't have to spend nearly as much time on training them.

Reducing Injuries

This area is directly related to your staff, but tends to be forgotten about when it comes to automation. Each year your company pays out for workers compensation claims. You may have a machine break down every once in a while, but the cost of repairing a machine will likely be far less than an ongoing medical claim.

Reducing Damages

Another fact of life is human error. How much do you spend every year on damaged products that your employees drop or mishandle in their rush to meet quotas? Automated systems tend to reduce the number of damaged items significantly. This saves you money in inventory, and also ensures that your customers are better able to get the products they need without any delays.

Reduced Waste

Warehousing often leads to a lot of waste. Wasted space and wasted paper are two major culprits. Automated systems are simply better at putting the pieces of your warehouse together to achieve the best utilization of space. This means you can spend less on real estate. Plus, most of these machines require less space to operate in than the standard aisle width required for employees to walk through. In addition, machines can be integrated with your WMS and don't require a lengthy paper trail.

These are just four of the simplest ways that incorporating automation into your warehouse management program can help you save money. By moving your warehouse management to an automated platform, you can eliminate many of the inherent costs of growing and adding staff, while maximizing your efficiency and quality. The sooner you begin automating processes, the sooner you can begin eliminating unnecessary expenses.