Effective warehouse operations require the standardization of layout, flow, and product identification. The focus of this post will be on items and their journey from receiving to shipping in Business Central, and how automation devices can streamline the process.
Challenges in Warehouse Operations
The challenges start with the vendors and their consistent adherence to your requirements. This includes product identification, consistent packaging and labeling. It extends to putaways that support your operational needs then picking/verification and shipping. Regardless of your picking method (order by order or multiple orders), picking accuracy is key.
Picking accuracy requires the right item, with the right quantity, for the right order. This gets more complicated as you add in Lot Numbers and/or Serial Numbers. Layer in the transient nature of warehouse workers and there are lots of opportunities for mistakes. These mistakes create customer satisfaction issues, regardless of the quality of the product and its delivery, and may result in fines and chargebacks.
If you deliver your products to Amazon, there are an additional set of requirements that must be met.
Options to Address Challenges
Warehouse operations are great place to track data within and after the warehouse. This data such as order fill rates, pick errors, on time fulfillment metrics are essential to effective operations.
The introduction of mobile devices allows users to have current order information and direct them to complete their next steps. These devices are often handheld (aka scan guns) that include a screen, keyboard and scanner. There are variations on the hardware that include wearable devices (e.g. finger scanners), but those are beyond the scope of this post.
Handhelds are typically configured with a series of apps that perform the various warehouse operations (e.g. receiving, putaways, picking, or counting). If you consider the number of times that an item’s data is required to get into, through, and out of inventory, each step is prone to errors when completed manually. The introduction of handhelds improves the ability to provide direction to employees while reducing the chance of errors.
Layer in the ability to license plate (aka containers) pallets and move entire pallets with a single transaction, your chance of errors drops further, and the number of steps to complete a transaction is significantly reduced. Pallet license plate usage is greatly enhanced when coupled with handhelds to build, move, and ship them. Item and pallet labeling can be integrated into manufacturing, so that the labels are printed and applied automatically.
Final Thoughts
As you can see the introduction of handhelds, pallet labeling, and automation provide opportunities to reduce errors, reduce labor, and increase customer satisfaction.
The apps for the handhelds can range from a Business Central App to Power Apps and ISV-specific apps. There are a lot of choices to meet your needs. It is key to define your needs, wants, and nice-to-haves.
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