If your company sells goods, inventory management is one of the most critical factors in its success. Most organizations that have warehouse components lose a lot of money due to inventory shrinkage brought on by internal staff theft, error, and damage, as well as theft that occurs outside the warehouse.
Retailers continually seek methods for lowering losses, whether by minimizing internal shipping errors and deficits in accounting or by eradicating shoplifting.
Imagine launching a profitable marketing campaign, seeing a surge in order intake, only to find that the item in question is unavailable since you only invested in a marketing approach without reasonable inventory control. It will frustrate customers if they wait longer than anticipated for an item out of stock.
As you continue reading this article, you will discover the best tips to manage your to avoid warehouse inventory losses.
Employ Warehouse Management Software
Even though a warehousing fulfillment performs various tasks, the data produced is synchronous. Item data must remain consistent throughout the many procedures for a warehouse to operate efficiently.
When it comes time to ship the products for delivery, the inventory data you record when the items reach your warehouse, such as stock keeping units, product counts, product types, and category names, will be carried over. This transition can be significantly streamlined by employing warehouse management software. Such solutions, like Modula, automate data maintenance and facilitate seamless integration of inventory information throughout your warehouse operations, helping improve efficiency with Modula solutions. Maintaining records manually exposes you to risks like data loss and human mistakes.
You can generate invoices, packages, and packaging labels from a central repository of item information automatically maintained by warehouse management software. It ensures the accuracy and safety of your item-related information.
Additionally, it relieves you of the duty of ensuring the consistency of the data. Using a cloud-based warehousing app, you may also monitor your warehouse activity when away from the office.
Do Background Checks When Employing New Staff
Although it might seem obvious, a brief investigation of criminal histories will significantly reduce your risk of warehouse theft.
Background checks for jobs may involve some screening criteria. The ones you select will rely on a wide range of variables, such as the nature of your sector, the structure of your business, the type of function you’re hiring for, where that role sits in the organizational structure, and the degree of risk tolerance displayed by your organization.
In addition, you need to be aware of the rules and legislation that apply to your company. When conducted correctly, background checks can ensure the employment process’s honesty, equity, and consistency.
Potential hires should have their criminal histories checked, and you should contact their past employers to see how long they worked there and why they left. If you doubt a person’s credibility, go with your intuition and don’t hire them.
Have a Well-Planned Warehouse Layout
Designing your warehouse layout constitutes one of the most straightforward warehouse management strategies you can apply. You must meticulously plan the warehouse before filling it. Make sure the items may easily enter and exit your warehouse.
Mark each shelf to ensure clarity among your staff members when stocking and selecting the goods. Ensure there is enough room in your warehouse for maneuvering forklifts or pallet-jacking machines.
Conduct Policy Education
It is not enough to have laws in place; you must also convey them correctly and, if required, impose them.
Your retail location should establish a policy for addressing employee sales and returns, granting customer discounts, accessing treasured stock, replenishing stock, dealing with damaged or returned goods, and guaranteeing proper data entry, as well as penalties for breaking the policy.
Whenever these policies or processes are in place, you want to ensure that every employee knows them and that your entire team cooperates to stop loss by holding periodic meetings and maintaining reliable communications.
Address Thefts Immediately
In the retail sector, employee theft is an increasing issue. Even though business owners hope their staff members won’t steal from them, preparing for circumstances involving theft is essential.
Check your shift record to identify who was on assignment when a theft, or multiple thefts, occurred to determine who was responsible. Keep an eye on the behavior of the staff members on duty in the distribution center if you start to see a trend between lost stock and any of them.
You may need to look into it more if you observe any unusual activity, such as employees routinely clocking in or departing at strange hours. Deal with the culprit following business policy, instruction, and procedures.
Maximize Personal Identification
Companies may become so enthused with tracking goods that they neglect to track employees. Consider adding security standards that simplify tracking employees if you acquire a new stock or warehouse control system. It will help you identify when non-employee people are on the premises for no apparent reason.
Thanks to portable computers and barcode readers, each transaction includes an identification number, date, and time. It helps small firms search past inventory for lost or damaged items. This information can also identify and reward employees that work the fastest and most accurately.
Align Incentives
Every function should and can play a role in the solution. For instance, merchants can manage variety and discounts differently, marketing may develop storefronts and client retention programs, and logistics can choose more precisely to reduce the likelihood of loss.
Minimizing potential risks that each organizational unit in pursuit of its own functional goals might produce is made possible by involving shrinkage loss as an apparent element of the business incentive plan. It helps to guarantee that all units are conscious of and actively working toward bringing inventory loss to the minimum.
Managing Your Warehouse Inventory
Managing warehouse inventory doesn’t have to feel like an endless loop of choosing, packaging, and delivering with no rhyme or reason. It can be reviving if you make time to implement warehouse organizing daily.
With the correct equipment and procedures, operations can flow smoothly, item selection becomes faster, and workers are happy. So don’t wait; decide and start improving your warehouse inventory control right away.
Your storage facility becomes a target rapidly the less precise your inventory data are. Recognizing the stock you have in store (and where you can find it in your warehouse makes it easier to spot missing merchandise right away, lowering warehouse theft or loss.
0 Comments