5 Highly Useful Tricks for Warehouse Business

Posted by Isaac Brunt on November 17th, 2021

Running a warehouse business can be a proper logistical nightmare if you don’t have the right approach to the situation. Fortunately, in 2021, there are so many new concepts, trends, tools, and equipment leasing options to help you out. Those who can approach these amazing opportunities in the right way can help their warehouse business live up to its full potential. With that in mind and without further ado, here are the top five tricks that you should consider when running a warehouse business.

1.      Consider drop-shipping and cross-docking

While we are talking about the warehouse business, in an ideal world, the items that you’re storing would take zero storage space. How? Well, there are two tricks that you can selectively use.

First, the concept of drop-shipping implies that the good is delivered straight from the manufacturer to the user. Here, the retailer is merely an intermediary between the two parties. While you can’t use this all the time, resorting to it occasionally can help you reduce the pressure that you’re feeling at the moment.

Cross-docking is a concept where the goods are delivered from one truck to another. This way, your warehouse serves as a brief stopping point. This means that the goods are not stored but merely taken over, loaded again, and delivered to the clients.

While the above-listed two eliminate the need for warehouse storage altogether, they should be integrated with your warehouse system in order to help you get the most out of it.

2.      Get the right WMS

A warehouse management system (WMS) is the key component to running an efficient warehouse business. This is a digital tool designed to handle all your warehouse activities. It also helps you track down every single process your business is handling in order to recognize and predict bottlenecks.

The biggest advantage that it introduces is the upgrade in terms of process automation. It allows real-time inventory tracking, which makes traditional audits completely unnecessary. Another thing it does is help you out immensely when dealing directly with customers. This way, your customer support will be far more efficient.

When combined with good fleet management software (which some of the best WMSs have already integrated) what you get is an amazing end-to-end platform.

3.      Buy or hire the right equipment

Materials handling equipment is essential for labor efficiency, the safety of your employees, as well as safety of transported materials. This means that, aside from boosting your productivity, it is also essential to risk management in your warehouse business.

According to an agency providing forklift hire in Brisbane, buying equipment is not necessarily the most efficient course of action. If you want to be quick to innovate, reduce the initial investment cost, and have a chance of replacing equipment more frequently, hiring is clearly superior.

Generally speaking, it is only smart to buy equipment if your staff uses it more than 60% of the time. In that regard, hiring provides more flexibility.

4.      Labels, labels, labels

While some containers are quite transparent, you can never go wrong with labeling and mapping your warehouse. If you’re using a great WMS, chances are that the mapping process can get additionally automated. If not, you might want to go the old-fashioned way.

This also means that you want to buy some labelers (of various sizes and capacities). After all, different employees will have different handwriting legibility levels and this is something you don’t want to risk.

Apart from this, handwriting labels is a lot of work, which might cause some of your employees to skip it for their own convenience. With labels, you make things simpler. You also have an easier job of making this practice compulsory.

5.      Think about your hiring policy

One of the biggest problems with the warehouse industry is the fact that it doesn’t attract enough millennials and members of Gen Z. So, you need to adjust your hiring policy in order to make up for this deficiency.

A great hiring marketing campaign can help you out in this regard. Using social media platforms is also a new and innovative way to approach this topic. This is a topic that requires a bit more studious and strategic approach.

Also, it’s worth mentioning that making the workplace more tech-savvy might do wonders for its appeal. Including wearable technology into regular equipment, switching to new platforms and WMSs will also boost your hiring efforts.

In conclusion

In the end, these trends help you improve your logistical situation, automate various processes, improve your operational efficiency, and get in touch with promising recruits. Each of these five tricks helps solve one major bottleneck. When you combine them, you get a massive business improvement that you just can’t ignore. Overall, success in the business world is merely the concept of paying attention to details and allowing them to come together and form a bigger picture.