7 Ways to Improve Warehousing Efficiency

Posted on: November 8, 2016 | By: Craig Thompson | Acumatica, Wholesale Distribution

Warehousing Efficiency is an essential part of any wholesale distribution business’s success and is often a big focus area of improvement. Without an effective warehousing strategy it can be very difficult for distributors to grow and there often is a potential for higher expenses or lost money in stocked inventory. With that being said, improving your warehousing efficiency doesn’t have to be a nightmare. Below are 7 simple and efficient ways to improve your wholesale distribution businesses warehousing operations.

Increase Warehousing Efficiency

   

   1.Automate Warehousing Operations

Automating your Wholesale distribution business is an excellent way to increase efficiency and put your company’s time and resources toward what matters. While there is something to be said for manually managing your inventory, purchase orders, sales orders, analytics and scheduling, these activities take a lot of time to manage and can limit your business’s potential for growth. Manual processing makes it difficult to view the whole picture of your organization and the time that you spend creating these processes could better be spent improving other aspects of your organization. Automated ERP software like Acumatica ERP is crucial for any wholesale distribution company’s success because you are opening the doors up to future success. Especially with mobile technology that allows you to access whatever information you need whenever and wherever you may be. Not sure where to start? There are many manual processes to eliminate at your distribution center.

2. Increase Real Time Warehouse Visibility

Thanks to the wonderful world of CRM and ERP systems, your overall visibility into daily operations will greatly increase. Integrating your systems allows you to view many facets of your warehouse and inventory at once. Analyze buying preferences and payment history to give users a new insight into your consumer. Your marketing team will feel empowered by the prospect of more accurate and effective data and your sales team will be able to have access to real time information. Keep everyone on the same page without missing a beat. There is nothing worse than confirming an order with a customer only to be unsure about what exactly is going on inside your warehouse. Avoid this issue with real time warehouse visibility so that users can be aware of what is going on in your warehouse at all times.

3. Prioritize Inventory and Products

Prioritizing products and inventory within your warehouse allows you to maximize your profits. Assuming that the most expensive items in your warehouse are the most profitable may not always be the most accurate warehousing methods, especially when lower cost items may have a higher turnover rate. Prevent cash flow problems by identifying your most profitable items within your warehousing operations.

4. Simplify Your Order Fulfillment Process

Increase warehousing efficiency by simplifying your order fulfillment processing within your wholesale distribution center. By taking out unnecessary steps in the order fulfillment process, your warehouse strategy becomes significantly less hectic and as a result, frees up more time for you to better your customer relationships. Our world today is all about having the best at record breaking speeds and customers appreciate both quality and efficiency when placing their orders. It’s no surprise that wholesalers that deliver timely orders are favored over their slower but equally qualified counterparts. In order to fully succeed in today’s market and improve warehouse efficiency, wholesalers should try to digitize order processing functions to get orders out quickly and efficiently.

5. Be aware of Seasonal Demand Shifts

Many wholesale distributors experience high and low seasons, during which their stocked inventory demand increases, decreases or completely changes direction. This is extremely important to capitalize on and be aware of for wholesale distributors because staying on top of these trends can allow them to more efficiently stock their warehouses. By knowing just what materials you need and when you will need them, your inventory and warehousing operations will become much more efficient. Don’t stress about rush ordering items when demand is high or wasting shelf space on items that aren’t selling as quickly as more profitable options. By being aware of customer demand shifts you can not only keep customers happy but also increase efficiency within your distribution organization.

6. Lean Inventory Processes

Adopting lean inventory processes means that you are only carrying what you need and nothing more. This is best done with the help of an automated ERP system like Acumatica. Automated ERP can give you real time analytics on what products are selling, which items are the most profitable and can even provide predictive analytics to improve purchasing accuracy. By utilizing the power of automated cloud ERP software, you can potentially reduce or eliminate large amounts of safety stock as well as customize your shipping schedule to best fit your organizational needs.

7. Maximize your Space

Running low on space within your warehouse? Considering opening another location to fulfill your wholesale distribution organizations growing business? While growth is exciting, it can also bring additional expenses that you may not have if you work with the resources your business currently has. Before you dive into opening a new warehouse location, take a look at maximizing and more efficiently utilizing the warehouse space that you currently have. Try adding taller storage units or more effective storage materials rather than increase expenses with expansion costs. By keeping your current warehouse in order and efficient, you could increase productivity and simplify functions without the added expense.

Your Chicago based ERP and CRM partners at Logan Consulting are always looking for ways to help our wholesale distributors increase efficiency within their business. If you are looking to increase productivity or efficiency within your organization, contact Logan Consulting to help you find your best solution.



2020 Nucleus Research Report on ERP Technology

Free Download:

2020 Nucleus Research Report on ERP Technology

Download the guide ›