7 Steps to improve a 3PL Warehouse

2. Every day at a warehouse is a new day to face challenges and manage them efficiently Having a clean and organized warehouse is about more than just looking great. It’s about having more efficient fulfillment warehousing operations, excelling at training, and encouraging communication. A warehouse should be able to identify and surface issues quickly, address their root causes, and prevent recurrence At PL Solutions, we have a warehouse management software for Third Party Logistics (3PL) to help you smoothly manage your Third Party Warehousing. This software is compatible with your entire warehouse and will be involved in each activity that takes place there. You can rely on it for tracking the goods that come in as well as go out, customs, cross-docking, value-added logistics, RF scanning, order picking, and invoicing. However, your employees too can perform some key functions for well-organized warehouse infrastructure. Some of these ideas are given below.

3. 1. Take a fresh look At times it is observed that goods are dumped, accumulated, or get hoarded at a warehouse. Even though a warehouse has a huge area it doesn’t mean that unnecessary goods should be stocked. All outdated forms, broken equipment, unnecessary products, old boxes, etc should be disposed of to make place for essential commodities. Warehouse managers often fall into the trap of using established categories when sorting, instead of thinking about the Lean warehouse from a 10,000-foot view. You can sort your warehouse by type of object, chronology of order cycle or most-to-least used. While we’ve seen warehouses set up in a multitude of ways, many of them only seem to make sense – until you take a fresh look. Here are some suggestions.

4. 2. Categorize It is essential to have a definite place for storing the goods in the warehosue. Having multiple locations is essential to identify where the stock is. Is the stock in receiving, shipping packing, reserve, or picking locations and on which locations. • The warehouse locations tell you where the inventory is. Having multiple locations is also the key to have a good inventory cut off to support daily cycle counts. Daily cycle count will bring a better inventory accuracy and with it a better customer service. • Optimal warehouse setup will have it that the walking distance of the employees in a day is minimized. Using the item’s category to assign a Pick Location might not be the most efficient way to do it. Picking an order has to be done in aisles set up that minimize the walking distance, therefore the location must be well chosen and not necessarily according to the category. • Same logic applies to similar items of different Size (ex: S-M-L-XL), They should be on different aisle to minimize picking errors. • Scanning processes can also minimize picking errors.

5. 3. Setup This step is sometimes interpreted as “straighten” or “streamline.” There are many ways to improve the warehousing and the logistic processes. Here are two examples. • Lead time: we often take the vendor lead time as a fix value. There are ways to reduce it. Reducing lead time with the vendors, enable to reduce lot size, which then reduce space use for reserve and then with less material in reserve, it reduces the time spent to replenish from reserve to pick locations. This is a double gain, a gain on space and time. • Using EDI with your vendors and having them label the boxes before it reaches your warehouse reduce errors and time to spend receiving.

6. 4. Cleaning and Safety This goes without saying and it applies to all places, especially warehouses. The workspace should always be clean and free from all forms of garbage, dirt, debris, etc that can also damage the manufacturing goods. • All motor fluids should be immediately cleaned to prevent any workplace injury. Moreover, machines should also be oiled, greased, and cleaned regularly to improve their efficiency. • Paper, empty boxes, plastic should be in the garbage and not on the floor. • Businesses should always opt for prime safety programs so that their employees feel secure at all times while working.

7. 5. Standardize & Document Processes documentation ensures that expectations across employees are cohesive so that anyone can be working in any station without significant adjustment. These steps make it easy to identify problems. • Keep the processes standard as much as possible and running without exceptions. This makes it easier for the employees. Document the key processes, specially the one not done regularly. This is good to set up the expectations, but also to train new employees. • A good complement to written documentation is the use of videos. Various applications are available on the web at various prices depending on your need.

8. 6. Daily Key Indicators Picker should pick, Packer should pack, Shipper should ship is one of our favourite sayings in warehousing. Often employees are involved in too many various tasks and this is disrupting a good and fair measurement of their productivity. Specializing tasks enable to measure productivity and compare with your standard and between your employees Key performance indicators enable to see your progress and also potential issues in managing the warehouse. Example of some Key measurements: • Service level: % of lines shipped/lines ordered • Productivity: in picking, packing, shipping & returns • Shipping errors • Customer complaints • Storage Capacity available. • Number of Picking location Replenished per day. This is showing how good is the management of Picking & Reserve location. Daily auditing and reviewing should be done to analyse the success of the prevalent system. This can easily be done using 3PL cues on the main system, Power BI, Jet Reports or other applications

9. 7. 3PL Dynamic Software, contact us The 3PL Dynamic Software will give you immediate feedback about your warehouse management. It will ease your operations skilfully to help you fulfilling your business mission. Contact Us now to know in detail.

10. Contact us 344 40th avenue, Lachine, Qc, Canada, H8T 2E8 +1 (801) 938-4108 +1 (514) 998-8482 www.solutionpl.com