Wednesday 25 January 2012

Warehouse Management System

Warehouse management systems form a part of the supply chain process and are closely related to the inventory management systems. While inventory management systems track the movement of products throughout the supply chain process right from the moment of their conception their the moment of sale, warehouse management systems are simply restricted to keeping track of items that are in storage and are waiting to be sold.

There are several different types of Warehouse Management Software that can be used to keep automatic records of stored goods thus obviating the need to manually record all inventory related information. The manual recording of such information can be quite a tedious and cumbersome task and needs hundreds of employees for its successful completion. However, in the case of WMS software, a single person can manage all accounts related to the inventory in storage thus translating into many economic advantages for the firm by way of reduced labor expenses.

A WMS software consists of a system that helps control the movement of products coming into the warehouse and exiting it. A proper regulation and supervision is maintained on all the stock items that are stored thus substantially reducing any risk of pilferage or unsubstantiated loss of products. Different systems within the WMS software can also help determine the sale trends which can help formulate inventory ordering places in a significant manner. A firm can indulge in useful activities like capacity planning, manufacture planning, etc. to enhance its efficiency and profits to the maximum. Warehouse management also helps in the accurate maintenance of accounts which helps evaluate the true worth of the company in terms of its assets and availability of monetary resources. As each item has been recorded in such software, there is a realistic and correct maintenance of records regarding the inventory.

Warehouse management software can also help considerably in improving upon the operations related to moving the items to their intended locations by coming up with the best methods of doing so. All this is done in scientific manner by conducting time and motion studies which helps extract the maximum output from the workers. Some of the characteristics of a good WMS are that it should be flexible enough to accommodate different management practices and policies; it should be consist of integrated tasks or operations and be able to successfully regulate tasks in a disciplined manner.

To know more about Warehouse Management, contact McLane Logistics Technology, 4001 Central Ponte, Parkway, Temple, TX 76504 or call at 1-800-989-7568.

Friday 20 January 2012

Meeting Customers Demand

Managing inventory in an appropriate manner can be instrumental in determining the level of satisfaction showcased by your customers. Efficient inventory management practices are indelibly bound up with customer satisfaction as maintaining adequate stock for effecting sales is a pre requisite to fulfilling the demands of customers.

The inventory management practices followed by your company must take into account the demand trends showcased by customers. Several factors have to be taken into consideration to judge and foresee the future demand for a particular product. It is not only essential to make the right kind of products available to your customers but is also equally important to make them available at the right time.

Several studies relating to the measurement of customer habits suggest that if a certain company is unable to meet their demands regarding a particular item, customers showcase a tendency to quickly shift to competitors who are able to provide a similar item. This in turn leads to huge losses for your company. Customers can even switch loyalties when you are unable to provide the required quantity of items in a specified time on account of low availability of stock. Most customers prefer to meet the gap in the quantity that they originally asked for and the quantity supplied by looking for alternate suppliers.

This makes it essential for businesses to come up with effective mechanisms to keep adequate inventory levels and replenish their stock on a regular basis as per customer demands. However, the maintenance of adequate inventory levels does not mean purchasing an excessive amount of inventory than what is required to meet the needs of the market as this can lead to adverse results.

There are several different techniques that can be used to measure the right amount of inventory for your business, for example, by dividing the number of stocked items shipped by the date or delivery communicated to the customer divided by the total number of items for which the order was actually placed. There are many such methods that can help arrive at an inventory figure using scientific techniques. Thus, inventory decisions must be based on logic and statistical analysis rather than on mere guess work.

For more details, contact McLane Logistics Technology, 4001 Central Ponte, Parkway, Temple, TX 76504. You can also call us at 1-800-989-7568.

Thursday 12 January 2012

Importance Of Bar Code

Bar coding is a technique used to record the finished products in your warehouse or storage before they are sold to final customers. For a trading firm, it is even used to record a new shipment of items that may have been received from a manufacturer. The importance of using bar coding to record items during the supply chain process cannot be underestimated because of the immense economic and operational advantages it offers.

The absence of bar coding calls for an extensive procedure of manually counting all the products that are present in the storage area in your organization. This calls for the presence of a number of employees that need to be kept on the permanent rolls of the company for conducting counting operations whenever products are manufactured or received from third parties. A few employees cannot perform the extensive and strenuous task of making a headcount of all the products. Special teams need to be created in order to complete the counting process efficiently.

Bar coding reduces the need of hiring a number of employees and reduces the requirement to one or two employees that are proficient in handling a bar code scanner. All the products can simply be passed under a hand held scanner and all the necessary information about it will be automatically uploaded onto your computer systems. On the other hand, when manual counting needs to be conducted; the relevant data about the product needs to be entered in a tedious and time consuming process. Investing in a bar coding scanner and the related technologies and software is thus considered to be an immensely useful step for any organization especially if it is a large scale one.

Bar coding scanners are generally available in two specific types, manual and automatic. In the case of the latter, you do not even need to hire an employee for running the scanner on the products as the scanning is done automatically. The products need to be placed on a conveyer belt after which they will pass under the scanner one by one. An automatic scanner is generally more expensive than a manual one and is better suited to large scale organizations.

For more details, contact McLane Logistics Technology, 4001 Central Ponte, Parkway, Temple, TX 76504. You can also call us at 1-800-989-7568.

Friday 6 January 2012

Improper Distribution Management Can Increase Your Costs

Distribution management is a process that involves the distribution of inventory at all levels. For any manufacturing or trading firm, managing the distribution of products being provided for sale at retail locations is of prime importance. There is generally a separate department to look after this process in every company irrespective of whether it is large or small. Appropriate distribution management forms an essential part of functioning of a successful organization. If inventory is not managed efficiently and effectively, it generally leads to wastage and loss of goods that turns out to be harmful for the company’s interests. It can also lead to non-fulfillment of delivery timeliness.

Although it is felt by some managers that distribution management is an expensive function, it actually leads to huge savings in the long run. This is because the monetary advantages that can be reaped by allocating inventory to the right place at the right time far outweigh the costs involved in training personnel for affecting this process. It may require a certain amount of resources and manpower initially to bring about effective distribution management but the results are clearly visible by way of increased profits that are inevitable as a result of this process. Some of the reasons why improper distribution management can increase your costs have been mentioned below:
  1. If an effective and transparent method of distribution is not developed, it may lead to pilferage of goods as there are no checks maintained on inventory levels during different stages of production.
  2. Improper distribution management also leads to escalated costs in the long run as firms can miss out on making sales as a result of having a lesser amount of stock than is demanded in the market. Proper distribution management on the other hand consists of various tools that help assess the correct levels of demand and thus help provide the required amount to customers. This ensures that equality is being maintained in the quantity of goods demanded and supplied.
  3. Improper distribution management can lead to huge correction costs that may need to be incurred whenever anything goes wrong in the distribution process.
For more details about the distribution management Systems, you can contact at McLane Logistics Technology, 4001 Central Pointe Parkway, Temple, TX 76504 or call 1-800-989-7568.