Small Businesses need Stock Control and Warehouse Management

Call #44 (0) 845 867 2032 or e-mail to discuss how es Consulting can help you control your stock.

Control goods received, goods out and stock taking with SageBarcode.

The warehouse is the heart of any wholesale distribution business. These types of business are starting up all the time, especially now it is possible to sell very significant volumes of product via the web.  While web shops appear very attractive and a low cost route into business, newcomers find very quickly that even at modest levels of sales, the problem of fulfilling the orders in a timely, accurate and efficient way becomes vitally important to the success of the whole operation.  Failure to  achieve and maintain acceptable performance can result in a very poor reputation which can spread very quickly.
 
The key processes in a warehouse are accepting deliveries against purchase orders, storing the product in a way which allows it to be found efficiently and allows any management of any products that have a limited life, and packing and shipping the products quickly, accurately and efficiently against sales orders.
A further issue which is of vital importance is the need to know what stock is in the warehouse and what its value is at any point in time.  Stock valuation can have a very significant impact on the businesses bottom line and may mean the difference between profit and loss.

If these issues are not addressed early in the life of the business, the results are often very dissatisfied customers and a financial disaster which in the end, may be difficult to recover from.

Using a warehouse management and stock control system to make your fulfillment and stock control operations robust and highly efficient, will increase the businesses overall productivity. Running the business in this way leaves more time for the sales activity and will result in a profitable and growing company.

As your business grows, it is important to make sure that the business process does not become ineffective and outdated. It should be a priority to perform a regular review of your operational practices and to make adjustments as necessary. You should primarily focus on high productivity with no delays, preventing backup in the warehouse. Be sure that any potential problems that may cause processing to take longer are resolved. In this way you will maximise space within the warehouse, reduce the cost of operations, and improve the quality of service. This review may impact on the warehouse management system. For example, when it was first installed maybe the location of products in the warehouse was not seen as important factor.  As the business grows, it may become more and more important to manage product locations efficiently as it may no loner be possible for the warehouse staff to remember where everything is.

A warehouse management system will also make visible to the management team the levels of activity required to fulfill the companies’ sales orders.  From this easy to assimilate information, informed management decisions can be made regarding staffing levels and business processes.  It may also highlight areas where employees might benefit from training.  It is important that employees are trained to provide a specific level of productivity that delivers consistent, positive results and improves the quality of service.

Allowing some flexibility in your warehouse standards is a good idea because they can change as the demands of the business and the functions of the employees change. Allowing your standards to change as your demands change makes your business run more effectively, rather just adhering to standards that are written down on a piece of paper. You can get a lot of ideas for how to better your operation procedures in the future if you can encourage feedback from and between your employees.

In order to evaluate the effectiveness of your warehouse system, perusal of productivity reports is critical. The warehouse management system will deliver these in an easy to assimilate format.  These reports can provide a clear picture of the strength of your warehouse operation and will allow you to measure the impact of improvements in the business process over time.