Choosing the right warehouse management system (WMS) can be an important decision for your business. Not only will the right system reduce the potential for human error and improve your business’s productivity, but it can also be integrated with your third-party shipping service as well in order to provide a seamless experience for your customer.
The following are five ways that a warehousing system can help your business:
1. Enhance security.
A secure WMS will help increase information security by asking each user to log into their own account in order to make transactions. This helps to improve accountability, reduce missing stock, and ultimately improve the profitability of your business.
2. Process Optimization
Your warehousing system can also help you to optimize the management of your materials. Different systems offer different options and some let you choose from a menu of options. For example, you may choose to require that payment be received prior to delivery or you may choose that payment be based on delivery of goods.
3. Improved Visibility of Stock Availability and Customer Orders
Another thing that a good WMS does is that it improves the visibility of stock and customer orders by providing real-time data to your staff. For example, if a customer calls your helpdesk and asks if a certain item is in stock, an up-to-date warehousing system should be able to tell your staff member instantly whether it is available and how many you have in stock. By the same token, if a customer calls to inquire about their order, the WMS should provide information on when the item has been shipped.
4. Reduced Operational Costs
A good WMS can also help your business reduce the cost of labour. Since your warehouse is now electronically managed and properly mapped, your business will require less warehouse labourers and the company will have more resources to hire people to fill other more productive roles.
5. Enables Demand Planning
When your business has an effective warehousing system in place, it will improve the experience of the customer by providing more consistent processes. It will help to ensure that customers are shipped the correct orders and the WMS can also use a best-fit algorithm in order to predict future demand.
The right warehousing system can not only help to improve the productivity of your business today, but it can also give you the flexibility you will need to scale up in the future. Before choosing your WMS, be sure to consider your business needs and determine if that particular WMS is going to be suitable.
If you are in doubt about which WMS to choose, you can also contact Royal Supply Chain for assistance.