Tips to Manage Inventory for Multiple Warehouses

With great power comes great responsibility similar is the scenario with great business, a great business poses a number of challenges, inventory being one of them with multiple warehouses. Multiple warehouses are not just for multinational businesses but it is done to cover area geographically, some might have a smaller business and still have multiple warehouses, it helps to grow the business throughout the country.

Here are some tips about how you can manage multiple warehouses and get the best out of it.

Overstocking

Using effective management skills can be the boost that your warehouse requires. Inventories must be planned considering minimum level, maximum level, consumption rate at warehouses and turnover, Inventories must be planned considering these factors and an enlightened system will eliminate errors and it also ensures that warehouses have enough supply to meet their demands.

By considering geography as the main factor

While setting a new warehouse not taking geography into account will be a big blow. Look at consumption trough sales data and find out the regions and cities with a high aggregate of customers, factors such as rent cost and transport cost and the no. workers will vary while deciding the area for the warehouse. The area with a smaller population will have less consumption so no. of workers will be less but not the same case for the area with a larger population as they will need more workers, the transport cost will be less and the area required for the warehouse will be much more.

Warehouse layout

There’s always room for improvement, the process of packing and picking takes up most time which ends up making customers unhappy and even lost sales, an unorganized warehouse can confuse workers, while an organized one will eliminate the extra time for picking and packing. Warehouses must always be optimized for efficiency, which in turn is logical and easy for employees to navigate. Popular products must be kept near the exit door so employees can quickly send these orders out.

Using Secure and movable tracking options.

Mispicks happens when customers get the wrong item, this leads to nothing but wastage of time and labor, word gets around which is not good for the company’s reputation. A tracking option adds the trust that the right product will be delivered to customers, and also adds the feature of changing the destination with just a click. By tracking warehouse assets, destinations can be managed and assigned easily.

Keeping up with customer’s demand.

The best way to fulfill your stock levels is to identify what customer’s demand is at the moment and ensuring that the warehouse holds enough products to meet demands. Safety stock must be the minimum requirement and additional quantity will be according to the consumption of the product.

Little extra efforts.

Analyze the processes that can be done to cut personal costs and time for pick, pack and shipping and restocking the item. Always keep a similar team for product’s picking to restocking as they will have an idea about where they can find stuff, who to pack, why they have to ship and how to restock. This will not only save time but will be more efficient.

What more?

Managing multiple warehouses need a plan for working effectively, the plan must ensure that stocks must be available and don’t run out of supply. Customers are always the priority so make sure that the wrong item and damaged items do not get shipped, Effective skills are critical to managing and running an efficient business.

Tenaxx Logistics

If you’re looking for warehousing services, look no further than Tenaxx Logistics. We have the space, services, modern equipment, and commitment to customer satisfaction needed to make your transition to the world of warehousing a smooth one. To know more about our warehousing services, contact us today.

5 Ways to Optimize Your Pick and Pack Process

The picking and packing process is an important part of the order fulfillment process. By optimizing the overall pick and pack system, you can streamline your order fulfillment, gain customer trust, and increase your business profits.

Here are given 5 ways to optimize the pick and pack process:

Utilize your Warehouse Space Effectively

The items should be placed according to the order requirement. By designing your warehouse for efficiently storing and picking of items, you can save the time it takes to gather items for your orders. The arrangement of items should be done carefully such as always place top-selling items near the packing stations, store items right next to each other which are commonly packed together.

Keep Your Warehouse Well-Ordered

By keeping your warehouse area clean and well ordered you can make pick and process easy and fast. Ensure that the items your packers staff needs for orders are arranged correctly around the workstation. Always place the items from receiving inventory in the same place to avoid wastage of time in searching for items.

Use WMS for Tracking Items

Use a warehouse management system (WMS) to keep the record of items that are listed in the order and to find them easily. By using advanced warehouse management software you can save lots of time in it takes in finding and keeping the record of the items for orders.

Try Different Order Picking Methods:

Try different order picking methods such as zone picking in which each order picker is assigned a particular zone and will do order picking within this zone only, or batch picking where the assigned picker picks multiple orders simultaneously.

Ensure your Inventory is Up To Date

An optimized pick and pack process always depend on the accurate inventory system. Always ensure that your inventory is up to date for easily keeping the records of the items and to track them easily. Check for items that are out of stock and place the orders of those items for avoiding delay in the order fulfillment process.

Bottom Line:

Your pick and pack process is only one important part of running a warehouse efficiently. With the help of up to date inventory management system, you can optimize your pick, pack, and shipping process and increase your business profits by maximizing warehouse productivity and gain customer trust.

If that’s what you want in your business, we are here to help you.

What are the Risks Related to Cross Docking?

What is Cross Docking?

Cross-docking is an order fulfillment strategy where products from a supplier or manufacturing unit are shipped directly to a customer or retail chain without any need for mid storage of goods in the warehouse. It is a process of receiving products through an inbound dock and then transferring them across the dock to the outbound transportation dock. It consists of trucks and dock doors in inbound and outbound sides with minimal storage space. The process starts when inbound products are arrived through transportation such as trucks/trailers and are assigned to receiving dock on one side of the cross dock terminal. The goods are sorted and screened to identify their end destinations and moved to the other end of cross dock terminal with the help of a forklift, pallet truck, and any other transportation medium. After completing the loading of goods at the outbound dock, the products delivered to the end customers.

Major Risks Related to Cross Docking

1. Implementing the cross-docking strategy in the warehouse required capital investment. This can translate into a warehouse redesign to save space for a conditioning area and/or the adoption or designing of a warehouse management system to assist with cross-docking tasks.
2. Cross-docking fully relies on a team to transfer items from inbound to the outbound dock, organizations need to be trustworthy of their suppliers’ ability to deliver the right products in right condition on time to the cross-docking terminal.
3. A number of Transport Carriers needed to take full benefits of the cross-docking system. A sufficient number of transport carriers will be needed for the delivery of goods. Since the operation is mainly dependant on trucking, there is an increased cost, need for parking space for trucks in the warehouse, and need for enough docks to implement the system.
4. It requires time for proper planning and execution: without coordination between supply and demand and proper planning, cross-docking is not suggested in the warehouse. Therefore, in the global computation, cross-docking should save enough time to cover its application in operational planning.

Need Help with cross docking?

If you want to know more about cross-docking and how Tenaxx Logistics can help your business contact us today!

Advantages of Using Public Warehouse

What Is Public Warehouse?

A public warehouse offers you the best solution for all your temporary storage of goods on a short or long-term basis. A public warehouse provides short or long-term storage to companies on a monthly basis. Public warehouse fees can be taken together as storage fees and inbound and outbound transaction fees. A public warehouse can charge per pallet or charge for each square foot that is used by a company for storing their products.

Public Warehouse Is a Complete Package

1. The public warehouse not only provides storage space to a company, but also offers other services such as inventory management, physical inventory counts, and shipping functionality. The public warehouse charges its clients for a certain rate for the goods stored, the area of the warehouse used and the services the client wishes to use.

2. The company using the public warehouse does not have to hire warehouse staff, does not require any inventory software or warehouse equipment. The public warehouse provides a complete package of a dedicated workforce, inventory control software, picking and, packing facility and charges their clients accordingly.

3. Most companies use the public warehouse for the short-term, but it can often lead to a long-term relationship as companies been familiar with the convenience of the public warehouse services. Companies that own and operate public warehouses invest significantly in modern equipment to remain competitive. They offer clients increasing levels of flexibility in order to retain and attract more clients.

Conclusion

An optimized supply chain is one that delivers orders to its customer at the right time – and does that by spending as little amount as possible. If you can’t afford your own warehouse, a public warehouse may be one solution for your storage needs.