Has Technology Improved
Warehouse Productivity?
The preference for consumers to purchase their products from online stores over traditional brick and mortar locations is a cultural shift that’s here to stay.
Frustrated with retail stores which may not have the right product in stock, modern shoppers are flocking to the convenience of e-commerce transactions which deliver the exact product they want, right to their doorstep.
To adapt to the public demand for fast and efficient delivery of online orders, warehouse fulfillment centers are having to rapidly reshape the way they work to remain competitive in an increasingly fast-paced environment.
Advances in warehouse technology are being implemented in all major fulfillment centers, but how are they actually improving productivity?
Warehouse Organization
One of the most common ways technology has improved productivity is through advances in product organization via warehouse management systems.
Prior to advanced data technology being available to managers, most products would remain in a similar location in the warehouse racks for the majority of their shelf life. With the level of data available to managers today, fulfillment centers can employ organizational strategies such as “slotting”, which ensures products are located in racks that minimize the distance employees need to travel on foot to retrieve best seller items.
By placing the products that sell at higher rates near the front of the warehouse and the items which sell less frequently near the back, managers can ensure their employees’ time is being utilized productively.
Warehouse management systems also allow managers to predict which popular items may experience reduced sales numbers at some point in time and which products might overtake them in order volume.
Seasonal products may be among the best-sellers for several months of the year but wind up needlessly utilizing high value rack space at other times. A warehouse management system enables department heads to proactively reorganize product locations, ensuring rack space is being utilized effectively.
Lower Labor Costs
When a warehouse is organized efficiently, it’s likely that managers will find they no longer need as many employees or contractors as they had initially utilized.
When dedicated pickers have a smaller distance to cover on foot to pack an order, they can be much more productive. A smaller workforce operating at increased efficiency may be adequate to fulfill the required KPIs.
Even by retaining the majority of a workforce, but releasing lower performing employees, a warehouse can increase output while reducing labor costs.
Proactive Process Improvement
Warehouses are being increasingly fitted with cutting edge monitoring equipment such as video cameras. In addition to helping managers quickly pick up on any safety risks, reviewing warehouse footage allows supervisors to effectively identify and streamline processes that aren’t operating at optimal efficiency.
Instead of relying on employees to flag process issues, managers can proactively identify issues such as overcrowding near high value product racks, which can cause bottleneck situations and negatively impact productivity.
In response to identifying the issue, the manager can then move some products or widen an aisle to allow easy foot traffic access.
Dynamic Staff Instruction
When the location of stock in your fulfillment center changes frequently, as is likely with any effective warehouse management system, it would be unreasonable to expect workers to memorize each updated product location.
Particularly in high volume depots, there could be thousands of different products requiring retrieval for orders. Even if a high volume of product placements were static, employees can’t be expected to find every item themselves without negatively impacting their productivity.
To maximize efficiency, warehouse staff can be equipped with lightweight, handheld devices containing the exact location of each item they need to pick for an order, saving time and allowing them to pack a larger number of orders each day.
These locations can be updated instantly and remotely via a warehouse management system database whenever a change is made.
Loss Prevention and Security
With surveillance cameras, fitted alarms, and panic buttons, there have never been more ways to protect your building; warehouses are no exception.
By ensuring a fulfillment center is fitted with the latest in security technology, managers can decrease the risk of break-ins, reduce theft by workers, and respond quickly to emergency situations such as flood or fire, therefore minimizing loss of products.
By ensuring products are protected from preventable loss, warehouse managers can be confident their depot is operating at optimal capacity and that employees’ time is not being used for non-productive activities such as water damage clean ups.
Conclusion
It’s clear that warehouse technology is improving rapidly in line with increased consumer demand for online goods.
When used in conjunction with non-technology related productivity boosters such as setting realistic KPIs, completing all scheduled maintenance on equipment and effectively training staff across different roles, it’s an undeniable fact that advances in productivity boosting technology have and continue to improve warehouse productivity.
