What is a Warehouse Management System?
Many businesses ship their goods over long distances, and whether traveling by water, air, rail, or road, they need to know that their freight is handled and stored correctly at every stage in the supply chain. Competition is rising in almost every industry and consumers expect more from suppliers and retailers. With high expectations to meet increasing quality standards and order-to-delivery times, finding a logistics provider that can ensure goods are intact and on time is now a requirement, not a benefit.
Warehouse management is critical in protecting goods along the supply chain and ensuring a smooth and hurdle-free delivery process. But what is warehouse management? What is a Warehouse Management System? And how can they help your business achieve success? We find out.
What is Warehouse Management?
Warehouse management is essentially the day-to-day running of a warehouse, encompassing various operational duties that ensure goods are offloaded, stored, picked per order requirements, reloaded, and delivered to their destinations. Warehouse management includes:
- Organizing warehouse space for maximum efficiency
- Receiving and organizing goods
- Inventory management so goods are identified by product, rotation requirements, and cataloged accurately by location
- Efficient order fulfillment
- Warehouse labor management assigns the tasks in the order of priority, ensures all team members are properly trained and operating safely and ensures adequate labor to meet demand.
- Effective communication between suppliers and carriers to ensure goods arrive and depart as efficiently as possible.
What are the Benefits of Warehouse Management?
When a business outsources its warehousing needs, it benefits from well-trained professionals who provide speedy and efficient services. The business does not need to handle the time-consuming and, at times, costly process of staff operations and labor training and supervision. Your warehousing team will be experts, ready to receive and process your goods.
Warehouse management also provides the following benefits:
- Improved Accuracy and Productivity: Streamlined workflows and trained personnel speed up productivity, ensuring unloading, stocking, order selection, and shipping occur quickly and efficiently. Equipment, technology, and industry experience mean fewer errors in warehouse operations.
- Compliance, Security, and Regulations: Warehousing management will help you avoid costly pitfalls like retail non-compliance fees. Security built into the warehouse’s technology and facilities further protects your business from unexpected problems, such as theft or unauthorized access to your products.
- Reduced Costs: Warehouse management manages all elements of your warehousing operations for the lowest reasonable cost.
- Improved Customer Service: With a reliable warehousing partner, experienced transportation providers, and fewer errors along the supply chain, your customers can expect improved service and reliable, on-time deliveries.
What is a Warehouse Management System?
A Warehouse Management System (WMS) is software that helps warehouse operators manage and optimize operations. A WMS assists with inventory management, order fulfillment, and tracking warehouse tasks such as receiving, picking, and shipping.
Using a Tier-One WMS facilitates managing storage space given the parameters of pallet height, product rotation, potential allergen requirements, and product velocity and assigns warehouse tasks, all in real time. Additionally, it looks for continuous task assignment to forklift and other MHE operators to save time by reducing travel time between tasks, improving the overall efficiency of the warehouse operation.
ABW employs a Tier-One WMS. These are the most sophisticated warehouse management systems, robustly equipped with comprehensive abilities, functionality, and interconnectivity than other WMSs. The Tier-One WMS allows us to manage inventory across ABW’s multiple facilities as well as task assignment, cross-docking, and various other areas of warehouse operations.
Choosing the Right Warehousing Partner
Contact Atlanta Bonded Warehouse to partner with Georgia’s leading 3PL provider. Our decades of experience, facilities across seven states, and extensive operational network will ensure your goods travel quickly and securely every time.