OMS Blog 6 Way to Raise Your Game in Warehouse Management

6 Ways to Optimize Your Warehouse Management SystemBusiness is growing. Shipments from suppliers are rolling in. Customer orders are rolling out. You're feeling great about this company you've built, but when you go to close out for the day, your warehouse and office look like something out of a zombie apocalypse. Purchase order slips are scattered on your desk, cardboard boxes are piling up in a neglected corner along with other "to-be-recycled" items, and unlabeled boxes are still sitting at the backdoor, because who has time to deal with that? Your people are exhausted from doing manual processes, and your worry that you need to hire more and more people to handle the growth. Just another midnight rush to organize everything, right? Let's put an end to that war zone, and create some efficiency in that warehouse of yours. You have a company to run and the last thing you need to be doing is playing cleanup. This type of stress is taxing to your mental energy, and it is a distraction, which directly affects the growth of your business.Here are some tips on how to keep a more organized warehouse that will lead to a more optimized operations system and a less grumpy you.1. Start at the very beginning: ReceivingSometimes when you receive major shipments from suppliers, it's easy to give it the "Let's just take care of this later." Put an end to the procrastination and take the time to breakdown the boxes, shove them in the recycling bin, unpack your products and stock them accordingly. This is a habit you must commit to. If your shipment comes around the same time each day/week, then schedule it on your calendar. Putting it off will only allow it to become an even larger beast, waiting for your attention. It also helps massively if you have a warehouse management system (WMS). Master System's WMS will help automate the receiving, so that you aren't fighting mountains of paperwork figuring out what goes where, etc.2. Picking Items where they are Optimized.If you're managing a warehouse, then you know that optimizing your picking process is key to developing a more efficient system. Keep your best selling products near the shipping area to avoid a scavenger hunt that leads to a major slowdown in fulfillment is just one key concept of optimization. The key to this is you need to know what is your best selling item, and where is it located in your warehouse. Master System's WMS does just this. It allows you to organize your picking process via several different methodologies. So you get to pick which methodology works for your business, and our WMS helps you execute on that methodology.3. Analyze your Effectiveness and Optimization of your Warehouse .If you're constantly shipping certain items together, wouldn't it make sense to place them together in your warehouse? Each seller is going to be different, but if you analyze your order data and have statistical support showing that Product A is most often ordered with Product B, then decrease picking time by placing these products more closely together. Master System's WMS does this and even more. Like I mentioned above, and it can through our task management system combine like sales orders into one pick list, and it can figure out what your bin capacity is at the bin level or at the warehouse level.4. Eliminate Barriers and Speed Bumps.This may seem like an obvious one, but be sure that you are constantly keeping things out of the main traffic area. Management's focus should be on removing barriers and speed bumps from your warehouse pickers path to maximum efficiency and effectiveness. 5. Track your warehouse team and create a feedback loopDon't underestimate your warehouse employees and their role in the success of your overall sales goals. Their speed and dedication on executing various warehouse processes can make or break your bottom line. In today's world, the metric you should be most concerned about is speed to ship. So ask for input on how you can improve operations. You guessed it, our WMS does just this. Allowing management to performance manage many aspects of the warehouse operations, and it allows the workers to communicate information back to management in a friction less environment. This allows you to focus on improving your speed to ship numbers, which lowers cost in the warehouse, which increases margin, and that means more profit.6. Document Processes and Train everyday and all day.As the complexity of your operations grows, it is essential to document ongoing processes so that everyone is on the same page. The documentation allows you to audit your processes, to find out if your workers are doing what they are supposed to be doing, and to figure out better ways of doing those same things. If you're concerned at all that your operational efforts aren't working, make sure you have clear and concise documentation on the processes in your operation. Then train your people on those processes. Then when someone comes up with a better, faster and more efficient way of doing things, change your documentation, and train your people on those changes. Having a WMS will allow you to track those changes in the system, and see if there is an improvement in the numbers.If you are interested in taking your warehouse operations to the next level, please contact Master Systems. David Randall | Director of Operations | Master System, Incwww.mastersystem.com