While barcodes will be in usage for several years in shipping and manifesting methods, numerous warehouses however don’t fully make use of this technology. That’s a shame, because barcodes assist you to keep costs down and increase control over your procedure.
Among various other features, barcodes let you monitor the what, which and when for all warehouse activities within the four wall space. Because of this, potential savings may appear when you look at the next areas:
- a reduction in clerical costs because paid down need for manual data-entry functions
- Fewer mistakes through improved inventory tracking and good confirmation of tasks
- Increases in total stock accuracy
- Power to track staff member performance that may increase productivity
- Improved scheduling of warehouse tasks
You should use barcodes in warehouse paperwork (acquisition requests, choose tickets, etc.); for specific employee identification to trace just who performed exactly what; on specific products; and on cartons or pallets to identify the contents and track tasks. Each warehouse location can have an original barcode that facilitates inventory techniques.
Most warehouses we work with have used barcode technology to areas eg getting, putaway, replenishment, choosing, packing, shipping/manifesting, returns, pattern counts, value-add functions and labor monitoring.
We recently toured a furniture warehouse that had installed a warehouse administration software package within the previous few years. Because of to be able to make use of barcode programs, the company decreased the warehouse staffing level by 50percent.
We must remember that this is simply not a typical result for the majority of warehouses. But there’s no question that moving from a very manual procedure to 1 that uses barcode technology can yield considerable benefits.
