WHAT IS WAREHOUSE LOGISTICS ?

 

WAREHOUSE LOGISTICS

In today’s customer-centric world, transcending customer expectations is of paramount importance for every business, and we need operational excellence to provide value to end customers and reach their service expectations. Before understanding what does warehouse logistics means let’s just understand what warehouse and logistics individually mean.

What is a warehouse?

The literary dictionary definition of a warehouse is a building where large quantities of goods are stored safely and well sorted as per the needs of the business before being sent to markets. It is a place where all your products are safely placed or stacked in an orderly manner before being dispatched to the customers. So, when products are not moving from factories to customers, they are stored in warehouses.

Typical workflow : 

Products being delivered from the factory are stored safely inside a warehouse. Assigning them a Stock keeping Unit (an identity given to every item as per their category, type, quality on hand, etc..) and products are stored in racks and bins in a warehouse assigning a particular number to each rack - tall shelves typically used in warehouses - and alphabets to every bin - individual boxes within a rack - which helps in locating the desired product precisely, when required, based on bin and rack location. When an order is received from the customer, locate and dispatch the product.

Benefits of warehouse :

• Sorting and storing the products safely in the warehouse helps us to organize and improve the sales of our business by keeping a track of products and their stocks, thus minimizing the demand-supply gap.

• Warehouses can reduce consistent production by producing the products on a large scale and transporting and storing them in warehouses until required by the markets.

• Warehouses can directly ship products to customers, on time, from warehouses Instead of procuring them directly from factories or manufacturing plants which massively reduces transportation costs.

• With all the products in a single place, it makes it much easier to replace the misplaced, damaged, or faulty goods to customers when required instead of procuring them from factories, thus delivering time shipments and maintaining a good customer-brand relationship

What is logistics? 

Logistics is the business of transporting and delivering goods, basically planning and implementing complex operations. Practically in a business sense, logistics means managing the flow of product from its inception till it reaches the retailers, making sure that it meets the requirements of the consumer.

WAREHOUSE LOGISTICS:

As you might have got a fair idea about warehouse and logistics, Now combining the above two terms, Warehouse logistics can be defined as an organization (typically involving people, software’s and procedures) responsible for movement (transporting and delivering) of goods within a warehouse. 

BENEFITS :

The typical workflow includes Receiving products, Assigning Correct storage location, Packing goods, sorting, and shipping (including accumulating details and data of the products - received and shipped- such as type of product, their location, time of arrival, departure, and quality), too and FRO truck scheduling, managing truck sequencing and their routing.

Warehouse logistics can also include maintaining the products such as handling the damaged goods, supervising insurance policies of products that aids in case of any accidents, Managing their warehouse workforce, Warehouse pest control to protect products from any damage, and taking care of customer returns. In other words, Warehouse logistics are involved in regular day-to-day activities of the warehouse and are necessary for the warehouse to operate smoothly. 

Efficient warehouse logistics reduce the superfluous costs by effectively mapping the route in such a way that it reduces the truck travel time and minimizing the time needed to search and pick a product from the warehouse before shipping - as all the products are arranged and stored in an orderly manner in the warehouse - collectively saves both time and money to a business. As money and time are very important for any business to grow, optimum use of them through exceptional warehouse logistics is an added advantage and a tremendous asset for the growth of a business.

CHALLENGES :

As effective warehouse logistics help to propel our business further, many factors affect the warehouse logistics of an organization, Regular constant movement of products in and out of the warehouse makes it challenging to manage and track the activities, especially in large warehouses, some of such challenges are:

• Supervising warehouse space - Managing the space in the best possible way is challenging and tremendously beneficial if they can organize more products in less area.

• Communication - Effective communication among the crew enhances productivity as it helps in executing the warehouse plans in a much organized way, resulting in procuring and shipping the products swiftly.

• Product Tracking and Accuracy - Products should always be stored at their respective allotted racks and bins. Guesswork must be eliminated while locating products. Failure in locating the goods accurately results in wrong product delivery to the customer.

• Data analysis - As experts say “data is the new oil” (collection of oil is easy, but refining the oil adds value to it) similarly collecting the right information about warehouse - both incoming and outgoing information about products, damaged goods, workforce capabilities - and thoroughly analyzing similar patterns from data and taking the right decisions or actions suitable as per the data, is crucial for any business to reduce the mistakes and succeed.

One such case is to precisely analyze data about products in the warehouse such that they don’t face the problem of stocking too much, which reduces cash flow as they have to use the inventory on the extra inessential stock which increases expenses to a warehouse or stocking up too little which results in few orders and displeased customers.

CONSIDERATIONS :

• Selecting the right location plays a major role and can be chosen based on several factors such as type of business and products being sold if the purpose of a warehouse is just to store a lot of goods in bulk for long periods, a location nearby airport, ports, and railway station can be chosen or any rural location (accessible to highways) would suffice and costs less, but if the purpose is to deliver products quickly to the customer then setting up warehouse at any central key locations, lose to suppliers and markets, is optimum.

• Hiring Professional managers and setting up the required machinery and well-trained employees who are proficient in using the machinery and software - Warehouse management systems - help be productive and reduce errors.

• As technology is an important part of warehouse logistics and helps save time and reduce humane errors, choosing the right software to manage your warehouse according to your business needs is crucial. By implementing centralized computer systems in warehouses, such as Warehouse management systems, helps managers to collect and analyze accurate data to improve productivity, which gives rise to improved warehouse logistics and greater customer satisfaction. 

IMPACT OF COVID-19 :

The global supply chain is disrupted because of the covid-19 pandemic, which has certainly hit warehouse logistics. The world came to a standstill, because of the coronavirus pandemic, and it badly affected daily activities at warehouses in such a way that some warehouses were left with excess products and raw materials yet to be shipped to warehouses or markets where they were stored. Other warehouse activities - which were yet to receive products and raw materials- were halted.

Effects on Warehouse Inventory:

Before the pandemic struck, most businesses would follow lean management - Receiving just the desired inventory to manufacture the product - to save more space in the warehouse and unnecessary inventory costs. Lean management helps in creating more value for customers with fewer resources, by minimizing wastage, to manufacture their product in warehouses. But post covid, they were forced to cease production due to lack of inventory — as they could not procure inventory because of covid — and social distancing norms. So, manufacturers have to assign some extra space, in their warehouses, to stock up surplus inventory in such dire cases to aid production.

Effects on warehouse automation:

Pre-pandemic warehouses never required much automation, as most of the warehouse logistics -Managers and staff - would organize and split work among themselves. However, currently because of covid (As social distancing norms has made it difficult to operate on the full workforce, Warehouses were forced to reduce their workforce which made it difficult to meet the increasing demands of customers affecting the profits and delay in shipping orders to customers) warehouses must innovate themselves and find ways to work with a reduced workforce. Less workforce, unfulfilled orders, and an increase in demand post-pandemic made businesses more inclined towards automation. Implementing automation technology may help in increasing warehouse production during these times, but automation will require high investments.

For example, involving autonomous robots and vehicles in warehouse product movements such as receiving products from trucks or dropping products into trucks for delivery, or picking up goods from racks will decrease human interaction, thus preventing the spread of viruses.

Post-Covid:

Post the pandemic, Warehouses require more storage space because of the increase in the inventory yet to arrive and additional space required to accumulate all the workforce. They have to continue maintaining social distancing norms and meet the increase in demand from the market.

WAREHOUSE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS:

A warehouse management system is software proficient in managing the day-to-day tasks of a warehouse. Warehouse management systems software can be operated through handheld devices, desktops, or tablets and are capable of receiving inventory, inventory movement and optimizing their storage, inventory inspection, unpacking and repacking, inventory tracking(it can even intimate if stocks of inventory are dwindling), distributing work among staff, and taking care of timely product shipping. A WMS is a database that stores and provides a clear analysis of inventory available, insights about real-time operations currently taking place in a warehouse, and the exact location of inventory(even while in transit). A WMS will add value to the warehouse.

Do you need a WMS?

As WMS captures all the inventory movements in real-time, any inaccuracy during work can be recognized and rectified simultaneously, which helps in effective inventory movement, reducing costs and blunders. Thus, executing a WMS improves inventory accuracy, decreases product replacements from customers, increases timely shipments, improves customer satisfaction, improves workforce morale, and reduces unnecessary costs to business. 

How to choose the right solution for your business?

Implementing the right WMS could make a difference between success and failure. Many providers offer WMS software, you can check them out here. Many companies provide numerous versions that are built as per the size of businesses-small and large- but some businesses develop their own WMS software as per their demands and requirements from scratch. Additionally, Wms is also designed specially as per the requirements of the industry and the products that they deliver. For example, an e-commerce warehouse expects different functionalities from a WMS than an automotive industry warehouse, as they have their targets, products, and customers.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:

What is logistics in warehousing? 

Logistics in warehousing means transporting and delivering goods; it includes managing the flow of products - receiving, storage, sorting, packing, and shipping.

Is logistics the same as a warehouse? 

Both warehouse and logistics conjunctively fulfill the purpose of the supply chain of a business. Warehouses focus on the safety of goods while logistics take responsibility for their procurement, safety, and delivery effectively.

CONCLUSION:

Every Product based business needs a warehouse and choosing the right warehouse logistics and software can be a game-changer to reduce unnecessary costs, working effectively, meeting customer demands, thus making a difference between success and failure.

Covid has impacted warehouse logistics and has shown the inefficiencies in warehouse logistics. Automation was viewed as a luxury before the pandemic, but now as a necessity-New normal- to keep the business alive during covid. Warehouses have to be more adaptable and flexible to face any such crisis in the future.

Comment with a yes or no.

If automation at warehouses decreases Employment Opportunities?

 

 

 

 

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