Techniques to Improve Retail & E-commerce Warehouse Management
A solid warehouse operation is fundamental to the success of a retail brand. It could either adversely affect the brand goodwill or propel it to newer heights backed by customers’ trust. According to an available study, 80% of respondents ranked shipping cost and speed to be “extremely critical” in deciding where they shopped, followed closely by the price factor. This makes warehouse management vital to the sustenance of a retail brand.
What is Warehouse Management?
This is the process with which a retail brand is able to organize, manage, and coordinate existing and in-coming stock within a warehouse with the help of the right equipment. It also includes picking, packing, and shipping orders, and extends to the tracking of the inventory to improve the overall performance of the warehouse.
Regardless of the size of a warehouse, the basic principles of managing a warehouse more or less remain the same. Incorporating automation into warehouse operations is relatively simple due to the high instances of repetitive tasks. Hence, the primary focus area when it comes to warehouse operations is to organize, so that the maximum portions of the operations get streamlined.
The article is an attempt to interest readers on “how to improve warehouse management”, or “how to manage warehouse employees” or “how to operate a warehouse.” The article also elaborates on the warehouse management process flowchart and warehouse management system. Before we delve into details, let’s turn our attention to challenges associated with warehouse management.
Challenges Associated with Warehouse Management
While there may be many moving parts when it comes to managing a warehouse operation, there are some major challenges that cannot be ignored by a business, these are:
I. Warehouse Employee Management: Every warehouse consists of two types of employees’ blue and white-collar workers working side-by-side. An employer has to be conscious about the fact that these two separate categories have to be treated differently, they cannot be at par with the same policies and management principles.
Solution: Employers can handle the situation effectively by chalking out separate well-defined policies for both sets of employees. These will help managers to give well-articulated instructions to team members reporting to them. Such steps will help bring transparency in the working environment with performers getting acknowledged and incentivized, while the poor performers would be notified to make better efforts and will be supported with corrective actions.
II. Warehouse Management System (WMS): Inventory management is one of the major responsibilities when it comes to running a warehouse.
Solution: A business would be well-served if it is able to incorporate a robust WMS tool that will enable the warehouse manager to maintain stock at the warehouse. Such a system would make the warehouse manager accountable to the top leadership. And the management will have knowledge on stock levels and associated information at their fingertips.
Process Flowcharts/ Process Manuals: A warehouse operation consists of both in-bound and out-bound processes that need to be managed well.
Solution: Business owners running warehouses would be well served if they are able to put across well-defined process manuals that will give clear instructions to the ground staff without any scope for ambiguity. It will help in the standardization of processes, decrease the learning curve associated with processes, and reduces the existing error rates within the system.
How YRC Retail Consultants can help a Business with Warehouse Management?
YRC as a retail consulting firm can help a business in improving the running of an existing warehouse or can enable a business to start a new warehouse. We understand no two businesses are alike and each comes with its own set of challenges due to company size, team maturity, and warehouse type. YRC warehouse consultants can provide professional guidance to define both i.e. strategy and operations with customized best-fit solutions.
