Manufacturing and order fulfillment processes all start at the same place — your receiving dock and warehouse. Problems here can create havoc on your upstream business processes. You might benefit from the services of a receiving warehouse.
What Does a Receiving Warehouse Do?
A receiving warehouse manages the intake and storage of inventory (products and components). When your warehouse operations run smoothly, your production and fulfillment processes will also run more smoothly.
· Pre-receiving — the warehouse receives documentation about upcoming shipments and coordinates with the shipper on any special requirements.
· Scheduling — the warehouse schedules any needed resources, including the loading dock, equipment, personnel, and storage space. Personnel are usually the biggest expense, so efficient use of manpower can have significant effect on the bottom line.
· Receiving — the truck is unloaded and incoming items moved to a staging area.
· Count — incoming items are verified, counted, and logged
· Inspection — incoming items are checked for damage or mishandling. If required, items can be sampled to test for quality or conformance to specifications.
· Documentation — in addition to logging, counting, and inspecting incoming inventory, labelling can be verified and additional labelling can be applied.
· Storage — received items are moved to inventory.
Is Your Warehouse Working for You?
Your warehouse operations should be providing significant business benefits, in addition to receiving and storage:
· Inventory Control — inventory levels are monitored and periodically counted to ensure accuracy and prevent outages and shrinkage. Items can automatically be reordered when stock levels drop to predefined limits.
· Quality Control — applying quality control at receipt of inventory eliminates problems such as production interruptions, customer returns, and damage to your company’s reputation.
· Customer Expectations — related to quality control, customers expect to be able to order and receive quality products on a timely basis.
· Sales Projections — tracking inventory levels can identify evolving sales trends, ensuring that you’re not surprised by outages, overages, or dead stock.
Should You Outsource Receiving Warehouse Operations?
One way to optimize warehouse operations is to outsource to a third-party logistics (3PL) provider. A 3PL can provide receiving warehouse operations in addition to packaging, assembly, order picking, quality assurance, shipping, and returns.
When choosing a 3PL provider, be sure that they are experienced in packaging and fulfilling orders for your kind of products. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and inspect their warehousing and fulfillment operations.
Why Component Packaging?
At Component Packaging, packaging and order fulfillment is what we do — and we’re pretty good at it. Receiving warehouse operations are an integral part of our services.
Our packaging and fulfillment specialists would love to show how we can solve your problems, simplify your business processes, and improve your bottom line: https://www.componentpackaging.com/contact-us.
Still have questions? Try here.
