Often neglected and disregarded, the warehouse plays a key role
in a business’s productivity. The best way of increasing warehouse efficiency
is by modernizing it – new technologies physically speed things up.
Additionally, modernizing a warehouse breathes a healthier attitude towards
work inside it, by increasing morale and motivation in general. Investing into
your warehouse technology will definitely pay off!
Lighting
Humans
are visual beings – we are meant to be active in daylight and rest during nighttime.
This is why dark, dim, improperly-lit places tend to decrease productivity and
focus. The best source of lighting is always the natural one. Despite this,
warehouses cannot rely on it, seeing as how they are purposely closed-off from
eyes of passers-by. Naturally, proper lighting is the name of the game, when it
comes to warehouses.
Light
isn’t only important in terms of worker productivity. Without proper
illumination, the risk for potential errors, safety issues and injuries is
increased. You, as a business owner are responsible for your employees’ health
and safety, so installing quality lighting should be on the top of your list.
Going with LED lights is always recommendable – although they are more
expensive than your typical lighting fixtures, not only do they provide a
healthier type of light, but also pay off in the long run,
seeing as how they are more durable. Furthermore, LED lights are more
environmentally-friendly, so there really is no reason for not installing them.
Barcodes
Originally
used to mark railroad cars, barcodes have seen a broadening of their use
in the past few decades. Not surprisingly, we now take these for granted (as we
do many other technological improvements), but we often forget that the
cashiers at supermarkets would have to type in codes for each product if it
weren’t for those little parallel lines and numbers. Today, barcodes are
extremely widely applied – warehouses that use these have seen increases in
productivity, solely based on the quickening of the process of labeling and
storing items. Yet another aspect of barcodes improving warehouse productivity
is outlined in the fact that human error is brought down to a bare minimum.
Scanning Devices
Although
it might sound logical that scanning devices go with barcodes, these gadgets
are worth a mention. Scanning devices make locating and picking inventory when
needed and conducting cycle counts easy, requiring little or no effort.
There
are two types of scanning devices:
- Handheld scanners, which are
portable and are usually long-range, which is of tremendous importance,
when it comes to products stored on racks – handheld scanners can reach
any shelf in a warehouse.
- Wearable scanners, which,
although they aren’t long-range, are convenient due to the fact that the
workers can use both hands for performing warehouse duties, which makes
the whole job safer.
In
order to get full access to the storage
units, equipping your warehouse workers with both of the mentioned scanner
types can be an investment that will pay off.
WMS
WMS,
short for Warehousing Management Systems are a technological advancement, well
worth the money. Their purpose is distribution center efficiency, labor
productivity, customer service and inventory levels monitoring. Basically,
these are tools for making sure that everything is done properly within a
warehouse.
RFID
Short
for Radio Frequency Identification, these devices can be placed everywhere within
a warehouse, with the primary purpose of tracking physical inventory, but with
a bonus of serving as a security measure. Place them at entrances, exits and
checkpoints throughout your warehouse.
Dock Door Scheduling
Now,
every warehouseman knows how long it takes for a truck to be unloaded. On the
other hand, every trucker is well aware of the fact that waiting for the dock
door to open in the truck yard often takes longer than the actual unloading
process. By streamlining the inbound and outbound operations, dock door
scheduling software makes operations within a warehouse more efficient.
Additionally, the cost of moving goods is reduced by this and the faster the
things are completed, the more work gets done within a workday – productivity
boosting at its best!
Some
of the mentioned improvements do tend to require investment, but others
basically go without saying. In any case, obtain these upgrades one by one,
until you’ve reached your full warehouse potential. Remember, making your
warehouse productive and efficient will greatly boost your business – it all
starts there!
vancouvar fire safety plan Thanks for a very interesting blog. What else may I get that kind of info written in such a perfect approach? I’ve a undertaking that I am simply now operating on, and I have been at the look out for such info.
ReplyDelete