How to transform your warehouse operations and increase profits
Warehouse operations should be optimised to ensure your business keeps costs down and increases its profits. There are ways to improve each process in your warehouse operations which can make your system smoother and quicker and helps you service your customers better.
TIMOCOM Marketplace can support your warehouse operations by helping you expand the range of customers interested in storing goods with you or help you to find space to ensure you maximise your profits.
We discuss the ways you can improve your warehouse operations to benefit both you and your customers.
What are warehouse operations?
Warehouse operations are the steps involved in storing goods to satisfy customers’ needs. It involves utilising space, equipment, and labour to ensure the goods are accessible and protected. Warehouse operations management involves, but is not limited to, these basic functions in a warehouse; the storage of goods, protecting them, risk bearing, financing, processing, and transporting.
Why warehouse management is important
Warehouse management is important because they ensure quick and fast supply of goods, price stabilisation, and bulk breaking. By optimising your warehouse operations, it can lead to lower costs, higher profits, and smoother operations that take the stress out of the process.
Benefits of warehouse operations to businesses in the UK
When your warehouse is running efficiently, it causes less stresses from unexpected issues arising. You can be more prepared for changes in circumstances and have time to react properly. The benefits of optimising your warehouse operations mean you can be more efficient which reduces costs and increase profits.
Below we have summed up the most important benefits for you.
1. Prevent shortages
When warehouse operations run smoothly, you can prevent shortages of goods by having reliable supply chain management.
This means you don’t run out of goods and don’t lose out on profit and can give your customers what they want quickly.
2. Manage labour
Labour shortages can be an issue but with efficient warehouse operations you can ensure you are making the most of the staff you have by saving time on certain tasks. Or training staff to do multiple jobs for improved staff productivity.
3. Improve customer experience
When you have a smooth warehouse operations system, you can ensure orders are picked and packed quickly and provide accurate information to customers about when to expect items.
4. Improve decision-making
When you improve your processes, you are more organised and have more accurate information about how much stock and resources you have which helps you to plan ahead. This helps to cut on production lead times as you have stock ready when it’s needed.
You can also identify bottlenecks and take steps to avoid this.
How to optimise warehouse operations
To optimise warehouse operations, you need to look at each process individually and analyse how best to improve each stage.
Receiving
Receiving means goods have been delivered to the warehouse.
They need to be checked to ensure they are the correct goods, the correct quantity, that they’re on time, and that they’re not damaged.
Once the warehouse receives the goods, it becomes responsible for ensuring the safekeeping of them.
Optimise by:
· Using correct equipment which can remove cargo faster or use smart systems to make checking the goods quicker.
· Smart systems can provide real-time data to help track the goods to know when you will receive them which helps you plan the staff needed to do this quickly.
Put-away/colocation
Put-away process means placing goods in the appropriate place in the warehouse.
Optimise by:
- Place high rotation items closer to the packing area to save time or place goods that are usually sold together, next to each other.
- Organise stock from bottom up to give more space.
- Create organic paths for movement and machinery.
- Use storage racks in the floor storage area to increase the number of pallets you can use.
- Integrate software with your system to assign optimal spaces quickly.
Storage
Storage is placing the goods in the warehouse in a way that speeds up the picking process. TIMOCOM’s warehouse exchange lets you calculate how much space you have and need to fill.
Optimise by:
- Use software to calculate the warehouse storage to ensure as much space as possible is being used.
- Increase the shipping zone area.
- Redesign the storage space to create narrow aisles to get more in.
Picking
Picking involves staff gathering the right products when they are ordered. Picking and packing are the most labour-intensive and costly activity of warehouse operations. It’s estimated that as much as 55% of total warehouse operating expense is due to this process.
An underperformance in picking can create high operational costs and impact the supply chain.
Optimise by:
- Product categorisation to avoid the wrong products being picked and speed up the process.
- Invest in staff who have knowledge of where everything is.
- Use warehouse management software that can show you where all products are in real time.
Packing
Packing takes place after picking the goods and is when the items that were ordered together, are packed to be shipped.
Optimise by:
- Combine packing with picking to save time.
- Ensure the right packing is being used. You want to ensure the product is not damaged but not add extra weight that can cause an increase in costs.
- You can use a model such as a nonlinear integer programming model that minimises order preparation costs by predicting customer demand based on historical data. This can achieve a 15% reduction in operation costs.
Shipping
Shipping is the last stage in warehouse operations and is when the items are transported to the customer. They must arrive safely to them and on time.
Optimise by:
- Use a tracking system to give accurate information on when the items will arrive.
- A warehouse management system allows certain tasks to be automated.
- Warehouse automation helps to reduce time and errors and takes repetitive tasks away from staff to improve their productivity.
- Creating an operating procedure that all staff follow consistently.
The quick and easy warehouse operations solution
Warehousing space is competitive, and you need to ensure you are able to react quickly to sudden changes.
With TIMOCOM’s Marketplace you can find warehousing space or offer space all over Europe.
You can filter by the amount of storage needed or by the type of storage and find warehouses or goods within minutes. With access to over 9,000 warehousing spaces, you are sure to find what you need.
We provide a complete service and act as a partner in road freight.
Whether you need open storage, covered storage, pallet storage, bonded warehouses, or hazardous storage, you can find a place to store your goods or goods for your space easily and quickly.
All companies are vetted so you can be sure your goods are in safe hands.
Get in contact with us today to take control of your business. Talk to one of our experts now!
