Warehouse Innovation Guide

              You make the call! Which is easier: Increasing sales OR reducing operating costs

pdf Download Warehouse Management System HowToInnovate Guide

Both have a major impact on your bottom line -- end result is to increase sales while keeping expense growth down to a proportionate degree. An integrated Warehouse Management System results with no duplication of effort and a single version of the truth.  Please review how innovating your warehouse can return a high ROI:

Business Process

HowToInnovate
Integrated WMS

 Return on Investment
Inefficiencies managing paper pick tickets
 Order dashboard displaying all orders filtered by user selection and integrated to handheld RF or voice picking Increased productivity with visibility to all orders and no paper shuffling
Random inventory storage

WMS gives you more flexibility to optimize warehouse space
 Optimizing warehouse space increases efficiency and may help reduce carrying costs
Receiving to paper PO
 Handheld RF receiving to the PO real time
 Integrated receiving with suggested bin putaway increases efficiencies
Difficulty locating product
 Real time RF inventory moves for your complete inventory visibility Increased order to fulfillment time
Shipping errors resulting in credit memos & customer complaints RF shipping verification to the actual order

 Reduce credit memos and enhanced customer experience
Inefficiencies throughout the shipping process RF or voice directed picking
 Increase order to fulfillment speed
Tracking goods through your entire facility
 Real time inventory moves provide end-to-end traceability
 Compliance requirements and
visibility to in-stock inventory to know what needs movement
Physical inventory time consuming RF bar code scanning integrated to count entry and cycle counting Reduce double entry and 
increase inventory accuracy
Serial & lot tracking and shelf life requirements Integrated RF receiving entry and serial/lot selection during shipping Real time serial & lot shelf life visibility
Process customer returns
 Verify customer returns against an RMA to immediately update inventory Increase efficiency resulting with real time inventory visibility
Slow inventory turns RF or voice picking  Increase order to fulfillment speed, reduce overhead and increase turns
Expedited freight costs
 RF order verification
Real time inventory moves		 Ship correctly first time and increased inventory visibility reduces back orders
Determining bin replenishment
 Automatically create tickets for bin replenishment based on picking lane and bulk storage merges Order to fulfillment time increased; Decrease labor
Tracking goods on a pallet Pallet license plate created for visibility of goods as it moves through the warehouse One click visibility to goods on a pallet increases efficiency
Monitoring orders through the warehouse Order dashboard integrated with warehouse picking and shipping activity Proactively review shipping in progress and analyze performance
Issuing material for production and delivering material to work centers Manufacturing order dashboard Effectively manage material issues and release work orders to the warehouse
Tracking items to a box or container Handheld RF or voice picking Visibility of items picked to a container
Back order management Automated back orders from RF short-ships integrated to PO and auto fulfilled when replenished from RF receiving Increased purchasing productivity with visibility to back orders enhanced customer experience
EDI requirements UCC128 and 856 ASN Automatically generate UCC128 labels and 856 Advance Ship Notices Reduce labor and increased customer compliance
Transferring product between warehouses Suggested warehouse transfers released to order dashboard for picking and shipping Reduce labor and improve inventory control
Parcel and freight shipment requirements Integration to carrier-supplied shipping systems Customer shipment tracking
Warehouse performance analysis Real time integrated inventory transactions On demand performance monitoring to help you better allocate resources
RFID requirement

 Integrated RFID

 Inventory visibility enhanced with reduced individual touches (labor)
Customer compliance increases sales

Together, let’s look at whether innovating can positively influence your bottom line by increasing efficiencies, thus reducing costs.  We can run your numbers through an ROI calculator – to schedule or further discuss please register for the HowToInnovate HowToImplement Virtual Seminar.

HowToImplement integrated WMS

  • Do your due diligence, perform an ROI calculation and keep that ROI focus
  • Document your goals and objectives / the problems you need to solve
  • Define the warehouse business process improvements (innovation) involving your end-user leaders
  • Work closely with your vendor and your implementation team to determine best practices for your warehouse
  • Create a thorough implementation project plan 
  • Break it down into manageable pieces.  Early successes = buy-in from your team
  • For a fluid install have a pre and post implementation plan to manage the production environment (go-live)
  • Test every function of the WMS to verify the setup; further testing is needed if modifications are required
  • Training users when they are not responsible for warehouse functions to get their full attention
  • Give your people pre-implementation practice time to get comfortable with the technology
  • Document procedures for later retrieval by end users
  • Continually communicate throughout the process verbally and written supporting documents
  • Assign personnel to manage the go-live that will work with users and troubleshoot