6 Warehousing Tips To Maximize Efficiency

by Josh Biggs in Ecommerce on 13th May 2021

Managing a warehouse can turn out to be hectic if you don’t put in place appropriate measures to improve efficiency. Warehouse efficiency revolves around the smooth flow of products in and out of the warehouse. This ensures that customers get their shipments in good time while keeping operational costs manageable.

Additionally, an efficient warehouse maximizes the productivity of your warehouse staff. Tasks that would take them several hours end up being accomplished in relatively less time. As such, consider the following practical tips to maximize your warehouse efficiency:

1. Analyze Inefficiency

You agree that you can’t revamp your operating procedures if you don’t have solid facts on the areas that need improvement. Therefore, your first step in improving the efficiency of your warehouse is to carry out a deep analysis of your operations and identify the system loopholes.

Ask yourself questions like:

  • Do the warehouse staff spend more time that’s necessary for storing and retrieving products?
  • Are customer orders sent out in good time?
  • Do the employees sustain any injuries as they work?
  • Are there conflicts between different departments in your warehouse?
  • Is it easy to know where each particular product is at any given time?

Such analysis will help you know what needs to be done to improve efficiency.

2. Enhance Warehouse Storage

Warehousing is almost synonymous with storage. Indeed, that’s the main function of a warehouse. So, you need to ensure that there’s a place for every good and that they’re stored in an organized manner that makes it easy to access, pack, and ship.

Sturdy wide span racks with multiple shelves extending vertically are a tried-and-true storage solution. Consider purchasing those that stack as high as your warehouse allows. This greatly saves space for unobstructed movement around the warehouse.

You can further organize your products into color-coded bins for easier identification and retrieval. When it’s registered in your mind that all electricals are stored in red storage bins, the likelihood of confusion is sufficiently minimized.

3. Rethink Your Warehouse Layout

Even with the best storage solution in place, the benefits won’t be realized if the layout of your warehouse isn’t up to scratch. The storage racks should be positioned in such a way that:

  • Enables warehouse staff to place goods on the shelves without much strain
  • Facilitates easy retrieval of products
  • Enhances the safety of your warehouse staff
  • Creates uniformity in the layout
  • Reduces the travel time of warehouse workers between different slots

All these can be achieved by making in-warehouse routes wide enough, consistent, free of clutter, and maneuverable.

4. Upgrade Your Warehousing Technology

It isn’t competitive to stick to manual processes while technological advancement allows you to automate many warehousing processes. Remember that you need to maintain an accurate inventory of all the goods that pass through the warehouse. And every other time, you need to make reports that detail the status of the warehouse regarding the storage of goods.

A good approach is to use a warehouse management system that tracks your inventory and automatically generates the warehouse analytics in real-time. Inventory software saves you time and money in that you’ll need fewer employees for your warehouse, and the few workers that you employ will spend little time in tracking products and writing reports.

5. Train And Take Care Of Your Workers

Infrastructure means nothing when the users aren’t conversant with how to operate them. More so, it would be inconsiderate to implement changes in your warehouse without a proper briefing and training of the workers.

For this reason, make ongoing training part and parcel of your warehouse routine. It shouldn’t be a one-off thing and then everyone goes their own way. Consider training your workers periodically on how to increase efficiency and productivity. Make sure all the necessary staffs are skilled enough in every technological gadget or software you introduce.

On top of training them, offer generous remuneration to your workers so that they don’t get overly tempted to look for employment elsewhere. Employee retention is key to ensuring the continuity of standard operating procedures for your warehouse.

6. Use Cross-Docking

For fast-moving goods, you don’t necessarily need to store them on the shelves and then have them retrieved some moments later.

What you can do is use a temporary staging area for inventory purposes, from where the goods are loaded to delivery trucks to proceed with their trip.

In Conclusion

You can greatly improve the efficiency of your warehouse by analyzing the causes of inefficacies and applying corrective measures as discussed above.

Categories: Ecommerce

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