Foreign warehouse management 10 advanced experience, how to make full use of valuable warehouse resources?

? ? ??Today's warehouse operations and inventory control operations have been very diverse, complex, by artificial to memory processing has been very difficult. If you can not guarantee the correct purchase, acceptance, quality assurance and delivery, it will lead to a waste of time, resulting in inventory, delayed delivery, increase costs and thus loss of opportunities for customer service.

???????Warehouses remain and will remain an important part of most supply chains, serving as buffers and regulators between manufacturing and demand.

???????How to make full use of valuable warehouse resources, access to the best customer service? The following is the US report made ten experience:

???????1, effective manual management.

???????The labor force is the most important factor in any successful storage, but as the economy grows, manual processes become more complex. Managers use engineering labor standards and support systems to assess the performance of warehouse workers, motivate workers, and can calculate the time required for any given task. But technology is not a panacea, success depends on how to apply these systems.

????????Brandon Drew, Manhattan's production manager, says the manual management system is invaluable in determining the amount of labor required. For two years, the company has greatly increased productivity due to the use of the new system. Especially in some large distribution centers, retailers and suppliers of profit is very meager, so the company had to fire employees.

????????Even without expensive systems, employee problems often plague the warehouse. Brian Hudock of Tompkins, North Carolina, says the problem is particularly pronounced in the multi-shift business. In the peak demand period, they will make full use of temporary workers.

???????Fred Radcliffe, president of the Toronto-based division of Radcliffe, Ontario, Canada, says manual management is shifting from manufacturing to warehousing. Last fall, his company bought a manual management software, and later sold to Nestle in Canada branch. Just a few months, the return on investment. He adds: "Labor costs represent a large part of the cost of inventory."

???????Kenneth B. Ackerman, founder of K.B. Ackerman in Columbus, USA, says companies should provide incentives to teams of employees rather than individuals. Warehouse operations are very diverse, it is difficult to have a fair standard for each employee.

???????SimonBragg, director of research at ARC Consulting in Cambridge, England, strongly argues that companies are localized before adopting engineering labor standards. "Although very popular in the United States, but in Germany is extremely failed."

???????2, through the intelligent system and layout to maximize flexibility.

???????Bragg said that placing the fast transmission equipment at each end of the channel is very meaningful and helps the staff overhaul the equipment. However, fast transmission equipment can not be too close. Hudock recommends that warehouses be divided into different picking areas by product category. In this way, Zhengxiang, devanning, the entire disk separately, to avoid on-site messy, reduce the loss of goods fall.

???????Flexible warehouses can meet the needs of different customers such as labeling and shipping advance notice (ASNs), said Bill Tyng, system consultant for Forte Industries, Ohio. Many major warehouse management system providers can generate specific retailers, such as Wal-Mart accepted shipping labels.

???????3, with the partners of the warehouse management system integration.

???????Integration and cargo tracking are key factors in making the supply chain effective. First of all, to seek warehouse management system and transport management system between the convergence. Previously, the two systems were sold by different vendors, and now tend to bundle. "There are very few companies that sell only one of these systems," said Jim Stollberg, vice president and general manager of Irista in New Berlin, southeast Wisconsin.

???????The ultimate goal of any system integration is to obtain real-time information. This information can help determine when to place an order, how to minimize transportation costs, and how to make the best use of picking personnel. "only real-time information systems can do that," said Susan Rider, vice president of RedPrairie, Wisconsin, Stollberg. "Many warehouses do not know wher the products are stored, let alone in the supply chain. However, real-time information can be used to distribute goods in multi-node network accurately and reasonably.

???????4, not limited to receiving, storage and delivery.

??????Retailers want to receive the goods they need, or special merchandise to promote, so retailers between the value-added services more and more popular. Likewise, manufacturers want to provide products for multiple markets. To achieve the above objectives, it is necessary to move the warehouse as far as possible upstream. Mary Haigis, Marketing Manager, Optum, White Plains, New York, USA, when it comes to mass customization, says it is a practice of mass customization of customized products and services.

??????Value-added services also contribute to the growth of online orders to complete. Dell is a pioneer in this field, and now a subsidiary of Procter & Gamble, Reflect True Custom Beauty has also been involved in cosmetics online ordering, its distribution center in West Chester, USA has been achieved according to customer demand for product design, packaging and labeling .

??????5, installed in the warehouse reverse drive.

??????Today's most neglected operations are warehouse operations, but the need for effective reverse logistics can not be ignored. Product recycling, processing, repair and replacement of customer service has a very important impact, and any operation of the nerve center are warehouses.

???????Haigis said, "100% of the warehouse management system packaging design is to promote sales, but now have to consider the reverse logistics problem." This situation is particularly serious in Europe, because the European retail policy is more broad, reverse logistics can account for 30% . But also in the United States reverse logistics is also showing an increasingly important position. This trend has opened up new opportunities for many suppliers to provide software and services for handling reverse logistics.

???????"Reverse logistics can be a flaw in warehousing," says Haigis, "The efficiency of the recycling process is very low, but it is easy to solve with the right technology and handling."

??????6, in the warehouse to build a central command center.

??????Kuehne & Nagel Logistics, Nogutak, Connecticut, USA, maintains a strong track record in the field of labor dispatch. Dan DeWispelaere, vice president of quality improvement at the company, said the operation could compare the number of existing employees in any day with the number of people required to complete the task, so that the warehouse could know exactly what departments or even every day Employee performance. Regardless of whether these tasks are centrally managed, each post will be designed to standards, rather than the same standard for each task.

??????This centralized management of DeWispelaere also extends to the handling of customer problems. He advocated the establishment of a project management body to guide the completion of the new account inventory, report the results of the implementation and progress of each department. Moreover, the project manager can act as a link between the warehouse and external customers, so that the warehouse does not involve too many tasks.

??????7, accurate measurement, rapid response.

??????There are many ways to measure the performance of warehouse operations, the key is to find the most appropriate method. Kuehne & Nagel Logistics has adopted a methodology called "5Ups" which assumes that the equipment operates at maximum efficiency and only needs to evaluate five key performance indicators. This approach is easy to deal with, and most of the warehouse managers agree with these five indicators.

???????From the software side, the event management system can greatly improve the response speed of the warehouse. The software comes with an automatic monitoring tool that warns administrators when problems arise. So that managers do not have to constantly check the shipping process. Moreover, if it is a small problem, it can be resolved automatically, only those very complex issues need artificial experts.

???????8, radio frequency and voice technology.

???????Radio frequency technology has been the United States Department of Defense and Wal-Mart's adoption. As companies show increasing interest in this technology, companies such as Texas Instruments will become potential beneficiaries. Speech technology is also important in dealing with inefficient human work, especially for midsize companies who can afford to invest and want to reduce their labor costs. The combination of radio frequency technology and voice technology will increase warehouse efficiency to an unprecedented degree.

???????Optimize the warehouse in the supply chain.

???????Effective warehousing tools must include day-to-day scheduling, order-to-issue scheduling, and stack management plans, including capacity planning and dynamic positioning.

???????But do not rely solely on technology. As Ackerman points out, artificial experts still need to play a role and need to allocate a limited amount of resources on a large amount of data. "Warehousing is not an automated business and requires labor because there are too many uncertainties," he added.

???????10, do not be confused by technology.

???????According to the actual needs of the introduction of technology. Vendors are very happy to show off advanced applications, regardless of whether they require complex systems.