Get Your Warehouse in Shape for Black Friday: All the Tips and Tricks you need
Evolving Landscape of 3PL Warehousing
The 3PL logistics have undergone a sea change over the last decade primarily due to the growth of the e-commerce segment and increasing end-customer expectations. Contemporary 3PL warehousing organizations face significant challenges in terms of operation efficiency improvement, cost reduction, and order fulfilment.
Earlier, the lack of software and computerized documentation made it difficult to have the necessary visibility and control over the work process, especially where the environment was fast. However, owing to advances in technology, today, there is the 3PL WMS software (Warehouse Management Systems software). All the innovations employed in these systems aim to optimize three key facets of warehousing by putting into use some of the trends such as automation, mobility, analytics, and the cloud to make the operation precise and accurate. Today, using modern WMS in 3PL operations eliminates such operations’ challenges and allows for perfect inventory management. Let’s get to know more about these challenges and how they enhance inventory accuracy for 3PL providers.
Pain Points of Manual Inventory Management
Prior to the advent of advanced WMS solutions, 3PL warehouses struggled with numerous inefficiencies associated with manual inventory management practices:
- Prone to human errors – Reliance on paper records and manual verifications opened up possibilities of data entry mistakes, erroneous product counts, and misplaced inventory items. This diminished visibility and trust in inventory figures.
- Lacked flexibility – Semi-automated or paper-based systems could not adjust to changes in workflows, product additions/deletions, or support multiple clients simultaneously without significant effort.
- Costly reconciliation process – Frequent physical inventory counts and cycle counts were expensive, labor-intensive, and disrupted normal operations. Identifying discrepancies was a lengthy, error-prone task.
- Poor visibility for clients – Lack of real-time connectivity and reporting abilities proved inadequate for sharing granular inventory data with retail and manufacturing clients which can cause an imbalance in retail inventory management.
These challenges often translated into inaccurate inventory records, low productivity, missed SLA commitments, and unsatisfied customers – threatening the financial viability and reputation of 3PLs. It was evident that technological overhaul was imperative to thrive in this competitively evolving landscape.
Role of Cutting-Edge WMS in Inventory Management
Adopting a modern WMS has enabled 3PL providers to overcome legacy issues and achieve industry-leading levels of inventory accuracy through enhanced visibility, control, and automation:
- Real-time tracking with mobile initiatives – Equipping workers with mobile devices facilitates the collection of accurate transaction data in real time. This includes receipts, put-aways, replenishments, cycle counts, and movements.
- Automated adjustments – Integrated weighing scales, barcode scanners, and RFID capabilities support automated receiving/put-away/picking processes, while self-learning algorithms maintain integrity through automatic positive/negative adjustments.
- Powerful analytics – Historical transactional data, trends, and patterns are mined to streamline exception-based management like ABC analysis, cycle counts, cross-docking, and physical verifications – preventing inventory record discrepancies.
- Centralized inventory control – Cloud-based multi-echelon visibility and intuitive user interface brings all inventory together in one place for easy monitoring and replenishment decisions from a desktop or mobile device.
- Configurable workflows – Flexible platform facilitates customized workflows for various product types, storage locations, clients with diverse business models, and scaling warehouse management activity through seasonal fluctuations or new contract wins.
- Real-time reporting – Dashboards, KPIs, and metrics-driven analytics empower data-driven decisions, while interactive reports deliver actionable insights to clients on demand.
- Low total cost of ownership – Cloud-deployed, device-agnostic 3PL WMS software scales easily without forklift upgrades, offers usage-based pricing and reduces long-term infrastructure and manpower costs through automation and mobility.
Adopting a unified and automated approach to inventory control has empowered 3PL providers to transform into accurate, efficient and transparent operations with a competitive edge. Let’s examine the key ways a WMS enhances inventory accuracy.
7 Ways a WMS Enhances Inventory Accuracy for 3PLs
1. Elimination of manual errors
By automating data capture during receiving, put-away, picking, packing and shipping processes, a WMS eliminates manual transcription errors. Integrated barcode/RFID scanning and automated adjustments powered by artificial intelligence maintain ledger balances in real-time – significantly improving accuracy.
2. Real-time visibility
Location tracking enables visibility of all inventory movements and transactions on a single platform. This facilitates proactive exception management to resolve discrepancies immediately and provide clients with real-time stock visibility to place orders on time.
3. Flexible configurations
Configurable workflows, rules-based validations, multiple units of measure, varied storage types and rules-based cross-docking simplify the management of diverse SKUs and exception scenarios. It accommodates business growth and seasonal fluctuations seamlessly.
4. Robust analytics
Data-driven insights from powerful reporting tools reveal systemic issues, root causes of errors, space inefficiencies, obsolete stock and demand patterns. ABC analysis and cycle counting is automated based on risk-variables to focus verification on fast-moving or slow-moving inventory categories.
5. Automated adjustments
Integrated automated weighing, scanning, labelling and sorting applications support inventory record updates in real time. Automatic calculation of positive/negative adjustments based on transactions, cycle counts and physical verifications enhances the reliability of inventory records.
6. Paperless environment
Eliminating paper-based documentation and manual verifications associated with receiving internal processes, as well as cycle auditing, has removed opportunities for human errors. Records are digitally authenticated with time/date stamps for accuracy and transparency.
7. Interactive client reports
Clients can view pertinent inventory metrics, stock availability, order status, and exceptions through an interactive dashboard or through custom report downloads. This collaborative transparency has strengthened partnerships through trust and aligned expectations.
Final Words
With the increasing focus on the digital depiction of business operations and logistics, 3PL warehouses need well-developed inventory management systems coupled with such technologies to face increasing competition. The need for a stronger WMS has emerged as a fundamental enabler to help establish reliable, timely, legal, and efficient inventory. Thrive amid growing competitive pressures.
A vital WMS has become an indispensable infrastructure that underpins inventory accuracy, responsiveness, compliance, and productivity gains. Real-time integrated display, use of automation, centralized management, and analytics-supported oversight help achieve massive, perfect execution while enhancing the worth of a 3PL firm. Also, you can check out Canary7 for more information or for any other business solution.
Namrata Chawla
Author
UPDATED ON: 24th September 2024
Namrata Chawla, a professional writer, crafts compelling weblog content on warehouse management, inventory control, logistics, and beyond. With a wealth of experience in this niche, she's dedicated to delivering unique, informative, and top-tier posts. Her commitment to exploration ensures fresh perspectives in each insightful blog post.
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