What is the Importance of Warehousing Management?

Warehouses are commercial places where people store their goods and products for safekeeping and mass storage. The various people who use warehouses are manufacturers, importers, and exporters, wholesalers, etc.

In today’s world, the importance of efficiency in reception, storage, and shipping of products has become one of the top priorities of business owners. To maximize your profits and be one of the leaders in your field, you need a sophisticated warehouse management system.

What is warehouse management?

Warehousing management involves the supporting and optimization of warehouse and various distribution center functions. Daily planning and controlling of the resources in the warehouse is crucial and involves processes not only related to transporting and storing but also keeping track of inventory. Warehouse management ensures efficiency and a more streamlined process, especially when it is automated.

What are the benefits of warehousing management?

Warehouse management improves the quality of work that goes on related to the warehousing, such as:

1. Boosts Efficiency: All processes involved with the warehouse see an increase in the efficiency and quality of work that occurs. Starting from procurement of stock to storage, every step of the process occurs in a streamlined manner. This not only cuts down on time, but also on costs and errors.
2. Saves Space: Warehouse management analyzes the space in the warehouse to ensure that all the spaces are being effectively used. This involves assessing the best storage location for a particular product. The stock to space ratio increases exponentially upon warehouse management, especially when it’s automated. Also by timing the arrival and departure of the various products, there is a reduction in the storage time involved for a particular product.
3. Increases Security: Since you know what product is stored at which location, it gets easier to keep track of the products and reduces stock shrinkage that occurs due to theft, damage or misplacement of products.
4. Organizes Labour: Labour is one of the most expensive components involved in warehousing apart from the various logistics. Warehouse management ensures that the pick and place route is the optimum one, which helps with assigning the workers with the roles that they are best suited for. This leads to better work distribution and increased efficiency, and also benefits the warehouse owners and the other people involved in the supply chain of the operation.
5. Guarantees Client Satisfaction: Since warehouse management makes the entire process easier and boosts efficiency, this guarantees timely delivery and quality service. Proper warehouse management helps build long term relationships and contracts.

Why is warehouse management required?

According to several studies, it has been seen that only a small percentage of the warehouses are efficient, thus highlighting why warehouse management is beneficial. Warehouse management can be achieved by hiring a warehouse manager who looks after all the processes, and/or by the installation of warehouse management software that can be used to automate all the processes.

Importance of a warehouse management system

Incorporation of warehouse management software in the process of warehousing management completely computerizes the process. All the processes starting from the arrival of stock to the storage and deployment of inventory occur in a streamlined manner. Most of the warehouses that have been branded as efficient use a warehouse management system and this shows that there is a proportional relation between the efficiency of a warehouse, and the utilization of a warehouse management system.

A warehouse management system is bound to boost all the operations involved in a warehouse. From placing an order to timely delivery of the inventoried products, all processes can be done more efficiently with a warehouse management system. Integrating such software takes care of even the minute details involved in the whole warehousing process, and guarantees a reduction in errors and manual labor costs.

The types of warehousing management systems that can be implemented are:

1. Basic WMS: This is the simple version of a warehousing management system that only has control over stock location. It can register data like product storage location and pick up instructions. However, it cannot perform more sophisticated functions like stock movement trends and management analysis. These systems are designed for warehouse owners who have a limited budget or who have not yet realized the benefits of a warehouse management system.
2. Advanced WMS: These perform more advanced operations like the planning and monitoring of various resources and activities. Integrating several functionalities and synchronizing the ins and outs involved in warehousing, they are best at performing functions related to stock capacity and throughput. The return on investment in this software is very high.
3. Complex WMS: To guarantee optimal performance in large warehouses, complex warehouse management systems are used. Large warehouses deal with high volumes and high throughput, thus, they require much better and efficient software that can take care of all of the variables involved. A complex wms not only checks where every product unit is at all times, it also helps with tracking and tracing of unit destinations. In addition, they also monitor the controlling, planning and execution of all the operations involved with warehousing.

For large businesses, complex warehouse management systems make it easy to integrate multiple warehouses into one business model. They also help in establishing a connection with the suppliers and clients involved in the supply chain. Although more complex software is more expensive, it provides more quick and efficient warehousing operations.