There are many challenges to ensuring good warehouse inventory management. Does your warehouse business experience difficulties locating products and processing orders? It may be the result of poor inventory management.
Fortunately, Monarch can assist. First, let’s delve into this topic and examine some of the most common problems.
Common Challenges of Warehouse Inventory Management
There are a number of potential pitfalls to managing inventory in a warehouse environment. These are the big ones we see most often:
- Warehouse Consolidation Difficulties
Especially in the last decade, many companies are pursuing different warehouse options by consolidating several locations into one central spot. This is a great idea in the long run, but it incurs many short-term struggles, particularly in brand-new facilities.
New warehouses will have totally new staff, who will have to be trained from scratch. This leads to inventory problems while employees are still learning a new system.
Also, with new operations, process breakdowns are very common. This not only delays processing orders but usually causes inventory scattering and other complications. - Global Supply Chain Problems
Supply chains are far more complex than in the old days. In today’s global market, it’s nothing for products to come and go from several locations, even thousands of miles apart. When one of those links breaks down for whatever reason, the whole chain is affected.
Working with many different vendors or suppliers can cause issues when they are not consistent. Each distributor is dealing with their own sets of concerns which may cause them to rush orders out or delay shipping making it hard to know when your product will arrive.
Shortages in some materials may lead to overordering which can be a headache on the receiving dock when all that inventory arrives too quickly or all at once with nowhere to go. - Picking Inaccuracies
When a facility receives an order, it’s important that the picking team correctly gathers the items. If the proper processes are not followed or new employees have been trained adequately, it’s likely that errors will occur.
If the wrong items are picked, the wrong items will likely get shipped. As a consumer, you expect to get what you ordered. As a company, the expectation is the same but on a larger scale. If your team is constantly filling orders incorrectly, you may lose customers.
Another key point is that when the wrong items are picked, it’s also going to cause an incorrect quantity on hand in the system. Now the system thinks there is more of one item than there is physical. This causes a problem for the next order that needs it. And so on and so on. Fixing these processes early will save a lot of time and effort later.
Lack of Technology Can Be a Problem
We even see cases where businesses are not using much technology to track their inventory. While they almost always have a financial system in place, they may have a very limited warehouse management system and in some cases no warehouse management system at all. Financial systems may have inventory management capabilities they are typically very limited and unable to establish storage location details and inventory states.
One of the essential aspects of inventory control is possessing a solid Warehouse Management System (WMS). This gives businesses a chance to optimize their entire supply process by keeping data organized and easy to access. The right system will allow you to see inventory across every corner of the building and manage how it moves.
Can you do physical inventory by hand using an old-fashioned pen and paper? Yes, you can still do things that way, but we don’t recommend it. Pen and paper present duplication of data entry, present issues with reading handwriting, and are impossible to verify in real-time. If someone is making mistakes it won’t be caught until it is too late and the count is complete.
Warehouse Inventory Management Services With Monarch
When you realize you are facing one of these inventory management challenges in your business, reaching out for help is a good next step. If you’ve reached out to Monarch for that help, you are heading in the right direction!
While discussing your project with us, we’ll try to understand your areas of concern and what your ultimate goals are for your inventory. You may ultimately determine that we aren’t the right fit and that’s fine. We know that we may not align with every customer or project. If, on the other hand, Monarch is a good match for handling your supply chain or inventory concerns, then we’d be happy to work with you to put a comprehensive plan in place.
The information in this post only scratches the surface of what it’s like managing a warehouse. That’s why we offer comprehensive consulting services that address every inventory concern. This includes quality control, cycle counting inventory, weights, and dimensions, and more.
Other inventory companies may only help with physical counting and tracking SKUs. Those are useful tasks, but we offer a much larger package at Monarch. Our trained team of inventory specialists can assess the operation from end to end.
If you need to improve your company’s warehouse inventory management, then don’t hesitate to get in touch with us soon.
