Warehousing

Warehousing is the act of storing goods that will be sold or distributed later. While a small, home-based business might be warehousing products in a spare room, basement, or garage, larger businesses typically own or rent space in a building that is specifically designed for storage.

What is warehousing and its types?
A warehouse is a commercial building generally used for storage of goods and warehousing is the process of proper storage and handling of goods and cargo using scientific methods in the warehouse and making them available easily and smoothly when needed.

Generally, there are 7 major types of warehouses:

-Distribution center.
-Public warehouse.
-Private warehouse.
-Bonded warehouse.
-Climate-controlled warehouse.
-Smart warehouse.
-Consolidated warehouse.

What Is Warehouse Management?
Warehouse management encompasses the principles and processes involved in running the day-to-day operations of a warehouse. At a high level, this includes receiving incoming material, organizing warehouse space, scheduling labor, managing inventory and fulfilling orders. Effective warehouse management involves optimizing and integrating each of those processes to ensure all aspects of a warehouse operation work together to increase productivity and keep costs low.

What Is a Warehouse Management System?
A warehouse management system (WMS) is a software solution that aims to simplify the complexity of managing a warehouse. Often provided as part of an integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) suite of business applications, a WMS can support and help to optimize every aspect of warehouse management.
For example, a WMS can:
-Utilize data and automation to conduct demand analyses, forecast sales and create efficient daily operating plans.
-Provide real-time reporting of inventory location and quantity.
-Share data with ERP modules or standalone software products, such as accounting software and transportation management solutions, to increase the efficiency of business operations.
-Monitor and report productivity to offer a deeper understanding of how efficiently your warehouse is operating and where you can make improvements to warehouse geography and optimize space.
-Create step by step directions to guide users through daily processes—such as receiving, work orders, picking and packing orders—using predefined rules.

5 essential warehouse management processes

Warehouse management is one facet of supply chain management. It affects retail order fulfillment, storage, inventory management, shipping, and distribution. Having an all-in-one solution lets you see what’s happening across different functions of the warehouse in real-time such as inventory being received, orders being packed, shipments being labeled, and any other movement of goods.

1. Inventory tracking
Inventory tracking is monitoring stock levels so you know which SKUs you have in your warehouse and the exact locations in which you store them, or if they are in transit from a manufacturer or en route to a store. Inventory management lets you know how much product is ready to be shipped if a customer ordered an item now, as well as when you should order more based on projected volume. As you grow, you will likely turn inventory over quicker, expand into new locations, and increase your product lines. This makes inventory accuracy and tracking all the more important.
2. Picking and packing
Picking and packing are two core functions performed in a warehouse. A warehouse management system should generate pick lists for each picker to retrieve items in the most efficient way. This may include zone picking, wave picking, or batch picking. For each new order, the picker will receive a packing slip of the items ordered and storage locations at the warehouse. The picker will collect the ordered products from their respective locations. Once an order is picked, it is handed off to a packer, who is responsible for securely placing the items in a box or poly mailer, adding in any needed packing materials, and putting a shipping label on it.
3. Receiving and storage
Any warehousing operation must be able to receive inventory or freight from trucks at loading docks and then stow them away in a storage location. A warehouse management system will need to be able to scan each new box received with the inventory quantities it has. Then, it will be brought to its short-term or long-term inventory storage location, where it will be scanned again. Warehouse management software should provide clear instructions for each user so they know how to receive, unpack, retrieve, pick, pack, and ship inventory.
4. Shipping
Based on the delivery options and shipping services you offer to customers, shipping carriers like DHL, USPS, FedEx, and UPS will pick up orders from the warehouse to ship packages to their next destination. Once the order ships, your warehouse management system should be able to automatically send ecommerce order tracking information back to your store so your customers can track their shipments.
5. Reporting
A warehouse management system should provide out-of-the-box operational and inventory reports across the warehouse. This may include accuracy in fulfilling orders (total mis-picks, mis-packs, etc.), total orders fulfilled by the hour to measure the efficiency of staff, orders shipped on time, and much more. There are also reports relating to people’s operations, including inventory forecasting to understand labor management and staffing needs. With a warehouse management tracking system, you can quickly find out which employees have completed safety training, those who have licenses and certifications to operate certain equipment, and other regulatory requirements you must meet to operate a safe warehouse.