Are you guarding your gold? Let me explain, the gold in the case of a wholesale distributor is your inventory. It is arguably your most prized asset, it certainly accounts for a vast amount of your investment in the business. So I ask again, are you guarding your (Inventory) gold?
I first heard this analogy some years ago used by an inventory management consultant talking about inventory control, accuracy and movement. It really did strike a cord with me. You should think about your warehouse like it is Fort Knox. You have a lot invested in what is on the racks, shelves, floor etc inside the walls of your warehouse. Do you know where everything is? Do you know how long it’s been there? Do you know how much inventory you really have? Do you know what your fastest and slowest moving items are? These are just a few of the many questions about inventory that need to be asked and answered. The answers to these questions are extremely important and you can’t afford to guess. If you’re not accurate with your inventory it would be like someone breaking in and stealing the gold out of Fort Knox.
Physical inventories help keep track of inventory but they are time consuming and pretty expensive to do. Cycle counting helps to but manual cycle counting is also time consuming and creates a lot of paper work and data entry.
Many wholesale distributors are looking for ways to become proactive with their inventory instead of reactive. The best way to do this is by installing a warehouse management system. A “Best of Breed” Warehouse Management System can make a huge difference in the accuracy of your inventory. By utilizing barcode technology and scanning the inventory every time it is touched it becomes virtually impossible to lose your gold. A WMS will begin to manage the inventory as soon as it hits the dock. It will track the inventory as you put it away, move it to make room for other items, help you replenish pick areas, assist in the accurate picking of the items necessary to fill orders and help make sure the products going out to your customers is correct. A warehouse management system will speed up cycle counting and eliminate the costly paperwork and data entry errors associated with manual counting. In most cases Physical inventories become a thing of the past. Do you have lot control or serialized inventory items? A good WMS will manage these items efficiently and accurately, something that always is hard in a manually run operation.
If you run a business that receives in inventory, stores it on shelves, racks, pallets in drums or some other manner and fulfills orders that come in for those items I would encourage you to look at a warehouse management system. If you have a system and it is dated you may want to consider looking at what today’s WMS solutions can do.
Contact us for additional information on Warehouse Management Systems by clicking here! Posted by iCepts Technology Group-A Partner for Accellos One WMS in Pennsylvania
