A warehouse is the fundamental component of every e-commerce company, as you may have heard a lot. Let’s expand on that tale: the two main arteries that keep the warehouse’s heart pumping are operations and logistics. Similar to blood flow, order never ceases! Automating your warehouse system provides efficiency in operations, keeping the warehouse lucrative and healthy, just like the nervous system ensures blood flow in your body..
Why Should Your Warehouse Be Automated?
Even if you decide to rent one, a warehouse is undoubtedly your biggest investment when it comes to turning a profit for your online store! And the costs don’t end there maintaining the warehouse comes at a substantial additional cost. Your most important construction pieces are labour, equipment, and supplies. Although labour may be employed intelligently, the other building pieces are fixed.
Of course, having enough labour is important, but what if I told you that you could only allocate labour where it is truly needed? The correct technology may increase productivity, accuracy, and cost savings in your process.
Let’s take a closer look at how automation might lower your warehouse costs:
Recognizing Warehouse Cost
In the warehouse, you incur several fees. Let’s examine all the expenses you incur!
Fixed costs: These include rent, taxes, security, and other expenses that don’t change regardless of how the warehouse operates.
Variable Cost: This varies according to the volume of your output. For increased manufacturing, you’ll need additional labour, packaging, raw materials, and other resources like energy.
Operational costs, which include upkeep, utilities, and equipment operating expenses, are the most important kind of expenditures in a warehouse.
You know what the out-of-the-open costs are, but your earnings are steadily being drained by operational and financial leaks that are not readily apparent.
Lower Warehouse Expenses with the Correct Automation
We will now examine the advantageous domains in which automation serves as a cost-saving measure.
1. Manpower Optimization and Cost-Reduction
You may have encountered this in your experience managing a warehouse: some inevitable situations arise due to misunderstandings or a lack of personnel at critical periods, which leads to a reduction in earnings. What if we told you that by examining it once an hour, you could maximise picker-level efficiency?
It is feasible, really! It guarantees the correctness of any information transmission by averting any potential misunderstandings. Since technology is involved, pinpointing the precise location of the disparity and finding a remedy is simple! We are aware that time is money, and that conserving time will save you money.
2. Automated Storage Optimization
In every warehouse, stocking inventory is a routine operation that you try your best to make go well. However, you are using storage incorrectly if you are unable to utilise it to its full potential. With automated storage optimization, for example, you may set up zones or lanes in your warehouse to keep the best-selling products closer to the picking zone. This increases picking efficiency and, eventually, shortens the order-to-ship time.
3. Visibility of Inventory Centralised
It may surprise you to learn that having a single platform with all of your inventory information synchronised with your orders and warehouse powers your business to its peak. Because everything is monitored by portable devices’ precision, there is less likelihood of inventory leaks. You can manage anything, including changing out your inventory based on damaged or returned goods or expiration dates.
Whether it’s an item or a product, the traceability that comes with inventory automation may help you operate at all levels. The batches you wish to make or package your items may be swiftly combined. When automation meets your needs, it’s a good fit for your e-commerce firm. Your order processing will become more rapid and effective with creative tracing.
4. Lower Errors Result in Lower Returns and Logistics Expenses
Returns are one of the regular responsibilities that e-commerce companies have to deal with. Reducing returns is the major objective, with the primary motivation being to cut costs associated with all the additional logistics.
Second, there is an impact on client satisfaction. Regardless of the reason for the returns inaccurate information retrieval, erroneous product delivery, or anything else the expense remains the same. For this reason, you require a warehouse with streamlined return handling and an automated information flow.
Choose the Storage of the Future
An intelligent warehouse belongs to smart vendors. The keystone of creating a smart warehouse is strategically using automation to meet your inventory and operational requirements. Allow us to illustrate: A brand of healthy snacks was having problems due to the short shelf life of its products. More returns and a loss of inventory were the outcomes of this. Occasionally, goods that couldn’t be sold at the market were stored there.
They managed its expiration by setting a tolerance threshold with the appropriate automation. This made a lot of things simpler. As an illustration, a product’s shelf life was six months. Five months was the tolerance specified. Once a specific level of tolerance was established, the product would not be further processed for sale. The items that still had time before they expired might be kept in storage. All the extra logistics were saved at once, and the returns were reduced! What matters most is that the clients were happy.
This is what your automation is aiming for. It should optimise your growth, match your company goals, and improve process efficiency rather than just being a piece of technology.
