Organizing your warehouse inventory is essential if you want a productive and efficiently operating shipping and receiving center. When it comes down to it, warehouse organization will help your employees pick inventory more quickly and it will allow your customers to get their product on time – maybe even sooner. The truth of the matter is that the faster your product arrives, the more loyalty you will build. Warehouse organization is also important for the sake of reducing injuries and broken products. Also, if you don’t use machinery, you could be damaging your inventory, which will wind up costing you more and more money in the long run. Here is how to best organize warehouse inventory.
- Place your slowest selling items in the back and the fastest moving items in the front. One of the golden rules of warehouse organization is to always place your slowest moving products in the back of the warehouse. Ideally, you want to place the fastest selling products in the front – the key word here being ‘fastest.’ By placing these items in the front, your warehouse workers will be able to retrieve them more quickly.
- Reorganize your palleting system and replace shelving – stacking vertically is incredibly important. If you aren’t stacking vertically, you may need to invest in a completely new palleting system. This system will be important if you want to save room in your warehouse. Not only is stacking important for the sake of saving space – it is also important for the sake of keeping products safe and organized more efficiently.
- Update all your machinery – your forklifts are essential when it comes to organization. If you don’t have updated machinery in your warehouse, you will undoubtedly have disorganization. Machines like forklifts are essential for stacking, receiving and taking items to trucks with ease. Ideally, you want to visit Heubel Material Handling, Inc. to invest in new machines. What you want to do is purchase enough machines for the size of your warehouse. A bigger warehouse may need more forklift units to complete the job correctly.
- Implement protocols for keeping aisles clear – you don’t want there to be any detritus. One of the main issues that warehouses have is keeping the aisles clear. If you have this problem, organization will be hard to achieve. This is why you want to implement protocols for keeping packing material, boxes and even machines out of the aisles. If the problem persists, you may want to implement penalties and docked pay. Keeping aisles clear is important for the sake of organization and safety.
- Create a more advanced system for recording SKUs – automation is the key to organization. On top of everything, you want to have a system in place for recording all your SKUs. If you can’t simply scan a barcode and place an item in the trucks for delivery, your system will continue to get backed up. This is why you may want to hire an IT consultation firm to update your SKU software. In the end, the efficiency of you warehouse depends on it.