6 Challenges Facing Today’s Warehouse

Have you got what it takes to face the modern distribution industry?

This ain’t your grandpa’s warehouse anymore. From ASNs to iPads, the way distribution centers do business has changed drastically in the past 10 years (to say nothing of the 50 preceding that!). Are you aware of, and tackling, the biggest challenges facing warehouses today?

Here are 6 challenges that most warehouses have to address to survive:

1. Inventory Management

Total control of your inventory, from receiving to shipping. Lacking this fundamental understanding of your DC stock can lead to too much overstock, or worse, backorders that make customers unhappy.

Using real-time cycle counting (and cycle count planning) assures inventory accuracy of up to 98% or better.

2. Customers Who Expect More

In today’s distribution center, you must provide very specific labels for your customers. You need to be able to kit and assemble orders. If you can’t comply with customers' requests, you may well lose their business.

You need a warehouse system that enables you to automatically accommodate these customers. You don’t have time to create a special label every time you ship to client ABC. Your warehouse needs a labeling system that is built in – recognizing each customer’s preferences and automatically providing your workers with the correct customized labels, every time.

3. Globalization

There are more competitors in your market every single day – people who sell nearly the same products you do, from anywhere in the world. They come from Mexico, China and Eastern Europe. The quality might not be as good, but the labor is cheap. If you can’t compete by keeping overhead down, you lose crucial business to those competitors.

Doing less with more is what warehouse technology is all about – automated processes and precise operations save you time and money, and put you ahead of the international competition.

4. Product Diversification

Take a walk around your warehouse and peak into the little-used bins. You’ll see products that you might not even be aware that you had in stock. Why? Your customer is demanding that you stock these items.

5. Unbalanced Business Growth

As the economy starts to improve, you might find yourself fielding more business. Increasing sales are good! But this doesn’t mean that you necessarily have the ability to start hiring right away. Without the use of warehouse technology, you have little choice but to start hiring, even if your payroll isn’t ready yet. Many businesses are still in a recovery state, and new employees require training, which not everyone has time for.

Warehouse management systems not only keep your employee roster at a bare minimum by allowing warehouse workers to operate at peak capacity, but it also helps reduce training time when you ARE ready to start hiring again.

6. e-Commerce

We live in an electronic world. If you aren’t on the internet, or can’t take orders through the internet, you are already falling far behind business that operation on the web. If you can accept EDI from your customers and ASNs in your warehouse, you have a distinct competitive advantage over businesses that refuse to get on board the e-commerce revolution.

Contact us for a more in depth discussion and how we can help with your warehouse challenges. or call 888.627.9797