Tracking your inventory in the supply chain can be a tall order, especially for businesses that rely on legacy systems or manual systems. However, modern warehouse management systems (WMS) are efficient as they allow for professional management and expertise. On top of that, you can keep data of the exact location, status, and the number of every item in the supply chain for easy identification.
With that said, you need to introduce a warehouse management system to streamline your operations. Professional software helps you in inventory control and improves accuracy, speed, and throughput. If you’re yet to implement a WMS, this should be your next action step. Identify a reputable WMS software company to develop a tailored system for you. A warehouse management software from Softeon or another software company from your city might be the game-changer in streamlining your supply chain processes.
To know how a WMS software can boost the distribution strategy in your warehouse, here are five ways to note:
1. Good Inventory Visibility
With a warehouse management system, you’re able to have accurate and real-time levels of your inventory. As a result, you can ensure that there are always enough products in your warehouse to meet orders. Meeting your customers’ needs with timely supply of their orders leads to satisfied customers.
For warehouses to effectively improve their service as an integral part of the company, they would need the best 3PL WMS they can find. With an up-to-date and functional system, warehouses become more productive and efficient in their overall operations.
In addition, your WMS can be automated with radio-frequency identification (RFID) detectors for identifying data encoded in RFID tags. Moreover, WMS can be automated with other scanning and tracking technology, which lowers the chances of lost, forgotten, or misplaced inventory in the warehouse.
You can integrate your warehouse management system with an enterprise ERP to help forecast functions and share accurate data on how different products are performing. You can make informed decisions concerning your products and make necessary adjustments to level up your revenues and lower losses with such information.
2. Better Customer Service
An excellent warehouse management system helps in inbound and outbound planning to easily adjust inventory and equipment movements. Depending on the time of inventory arrival, you can arrange for labor and storage facilities. With this in mind, a WMS provides inbound dock doors and outbound shipping docks solutions. Advanced WMSs can be integrated with transport management solutions (TMS) to improve your supply chain processes.
For better service to your customers, warehouse managers can decide between batch, zone, and wave picking in a way that lowers holdups and other hindrances that ineffective employees’ locations or traffic might cause. Moreover, with efficient inventory packing and tracking of WMS capability, your clients can receive shipment notifications and plan to receive their orders. The company’s customer service representatives can also check the system to provide timely feedback on customer inquiries. Â
In addition, they have ready information for service maintenance, traceability, and recall situations. These are a real possibility for each business and having an effective way of handling them starts with a sound software system that supplies the correct information.
3. Improved Material Tracing
You can effectively trace inventory in your warehouse using the batch, lot, and serial numbering strategy. Using the lot/batch number, you can know the group where your materials were made while a serial number helps you identify a specific item.
Implementing a WMS with the ability to trace the lot, batch, and serial number of your products helps you match incoming receipts and shipments for accurate traceability. An efficient means to trace materials help your warehouse personnel to lower potential redundancy and maintain precise inventory allocation and planning. In addition, they have ready information for service maintenance, traceability, and recall situations.
4. Facilitates Warehouse Automation
A warehouse management system can be the platform for incorporating automation technology in your warehouse. You can automate processes to transit from manual processes to electronic functions using mobile devices. With automation, you can improve productivity and boost information accuracy.
In addition, automation avails improved strategies in different levels such as automated packing and picking, analytics, robotics, and artificial intelligence. Such automation strategies help capture, record, and communicate activity through sensors, pick-to-light, barcoding, and automated carousels.
With all these technologies, you’re in a position to level up throughput. Moreover, automated conveyors and robots reduce efficiency barriers and streamline movement processes. Software systems connected to these automated functions improve data collection and accuracy for the warehousing process.Â
The warehouse staff can focus on other aspects of the operations instead of manually completing these tasks, making them more productive. When the automated system removes some pressure from the workers’ workflow, they have more time to complete each activity correctly.
5. Facilitates Continuous Improvement
Warehouse management systems are designed in a way that they can facilitate continuous improvement. You can do process improvement in phases. If your system is managed and supported by a managed service provider, you can continuously receive updates and patches to improve your processes and security.
With new improvements, you can take advantage of innovations. Software providers constantly rely on their clients’ feedback to tell them where they need improvements. One adjustment to the software can be beneficial to all of their clients. Â
Companies should always ensure they have the latest version of their warehousing software to stay on top of the constant changes and improvements. If not, they could miss out on valuable additions for their operations, or the software could become outdated and not function properly.
In addition, cloud-based WMS allows for real-time updates, eliminating the need for a big and expensive team of IT professionals. Moreover, continuous improvement helps scale up business profit and lower the chances of error.
Final Thoughts
Process improvement is the goal of every technology. Therefore, you need to employ technology in your warehouse by introducing a warehouse management system. The advantages of technology always outweigh the cons. If you wondered whether a warehouse management system could improve your business processes, this article has done a great deal to show how WMS can improve your warehouse distribution strategy.