ITS SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

MOHAN NAGAR, GHAZIABAD

Supply Chain Management

PROJECT REPORT ON
Warehouse Management(Amazon)

SUBMITTED TO: DR. Shailendra Kumar Dube

SUBMITTED BY: GROUP 5
MEMBERS: 1. Alik Ghosh (2021010)
2. Anurag Kumar Singh (2021022)
3. Divya Bharti (2021032)
4. Mahima Arora (2021047)
5. Prashant Tyagi (2021062)
6. Saurabh Kumar (2021076)
7. Shruti Maheshwari (2021085)
8. Shailesh Goyal (2021108)
9. Utkarsh Sharma (2021099)

Introduction of Warehouse Management

Warehouse management encompasses the principles and processes involved in running the day-
to-day operations of a warehouse. At a high level, this includes receiving and organizing
warehouse space, scheduling labor, managing inventory and fulfilling orders. Zoom in closer and
you’ll see that effective warehouse management involves optimizing and integrating each of those
processes to ensure all aspects of a warehouse operation work together to increase productivity
and keep costs low.

A warehouse management system (WMS) is a software solution that aims to simplify

the complexity of managing a warehouse. Often provided as part of an integrated
enterprise resource planning (ERP) suite of business applications, a WMS can support
and help to optimize every aspect of warehouse management. For example, a WMS
can:

▪ Leverage data and automation to conduct demand analyses, forecast sales and
create efficient daily operating plans.
▪ Provide real-time insight into inventory location and quantity.
▪ Share data with other ERP modules or standalone software products, such as
accounting software and transportation management solutions, to increase the
efficiency of business operations.
▪ Monitor and report productivity to offer a deeper understanding of how
efficiently your warehouse is operating and where you can make improvements
to warehouse geography and optimize space.
 ▪ Create step by step directions to guide users through daily processes—such as
receiving, picking and packing orders—using predefined rules.

Benefits of Warehouse Management

Warehouse operations are generally invisible to customers, but they play a vital behind-the-scenes
role in ensuring on-time delivery. To achieve this goal, good warehouse management ensures all
warehouse processes run as efficiently and accurately as possible. For example, warehouse
management involves optimizing the use of warehouse space to maximize inventory storage;
making inventory easy for staff to find; ensuring adequate staffing; efficiently fulfilling orders;
and coordinating communication with suppliers and transportation companies so materials arrive
and orders ship on time.

The benefits of good warehouse management—namely fast, high-quality service at low cost—can
ripple out to the entire supply chain, strengthening relationships with suppliers as well as
customers.

But given the many elements involved, optimizing warehouse management can be a complex task.
That’s why many organizations are turning to warehouse management systems for help.

Benefit 1: Optimized Space and Lower Operating Expenses

Warehouse management systems optimize warehouse flow by analyzing the best use of floor
space based on the task and material characteristics. In the WMS implementations, the use of
space and floor plan analysis is used to determine how space should be best used and provides
opportunities for reducing waste – waste of premium floor space and waste of time for locating
product. This will also lessen potential cost resulting from excessive material movement, time
consuming placement, and retrieval. By considering the best locations to store products, as well
as materials or equipment, a warehouse can lower its operating expenses.

WMS solutions can also help maintain material rotation, whether through first-in, first-out (FIFO),
last-in, first-out (LIFO), or first-expired, first-out (FEFO) practices. Whatever rotation rule is
required, the WMS can help the rotation. Typically, LIFO enables cost-effective use of space, and
movement. FIFO or FEFO can maintain product quality for items from aging out in the warehouse.
Some solutions have additional fuzzy logic so that a slightly relaxed FIFO or FEFO reduces
additional moves, for example: products that expire in the same month may be considered both
eligible to be picked. A warehouse management system operates with versatility and flexibility,
making it easy to form any necessary adjustments to maintain best inventory floor location
selection, choice of the correct inventory to pick, and help manage physical movement and worker
performance.
Benefit 2: Inventory Visibility
Using a warehouse management system will also provide visibility of accurate, real-time
inventory levels. This enables a company to more securely estimate supply and avoid
backorders, which leads to more satisfied customers.

Using WMS automation with scanning, RFID, or other location tracking methods ensures the
visibility at the location and reduces the non-WMS enabled situations where inventory becomes
forgotten, lost, or misplaced within the warehouse.

Warehouse management systems work in conjunction with the enterprise ERP and planning
functions to provide demand to forecasting functions by sharing precise information about how
certain products are performing. Product demand and seasonality is reflected as items are
transacted and information communicated. Therefore, with this information, planners can make
reliable decisions about which products to adjust for the company to increase revenue or mitigate
losses.

Benefit 3: Effective Labor

Considering workers’ skill levels, their proximity in the warehouse, their equipment, and
available warehouse tasks, a warehouse management system can better assign the right task to
the right person at the right time. Optimization of travel time within the warehouse is one of
the greatest benefits that the WMS can provide to improved labor utilization. The WMS can
focus labor on highest impact activities while finding the most well-suited laborer to perform a
specific task. Using labor forecasting, the system can assign jobs on a day-to-day basis and
efficiently design schedules. Scanning items during their entry into a warehouse, as well as
throughout their movements, can eliminate the need for work to be double-checked, saving time
and speeding up the recording process. Scanning improves pick accuracy, reducing mis-picks,
thus providing better customer service. KPIs can also be utilized to analyze staffing, which is
important because labor is often one of the highest costs of warehouse operations. Labor
efficiency, equipment efficiency, and space efficiency are optimized through appropriate work
assignment.

Benefit 4: Traceable Materials

Inventory materials can be easily traced with warehouse management systems using lot, batch,
and serial numbering. Lot/batch numbers indicate the group in which materials were made, and
the serial number identifies an item specifically. By use of WMS inventory tracking as
previously noted, the ability to match specific lot/batch or serial numbers with incoming receipts
and outgoing shipments allows for full traceability. This ability to trace materials lowers any
potential redundancy, enables accurate inventory planning and allocation, and provides current
retrievable information for either future traceability, service maintenance, or recall situations.

Benefit 5: Optimized Supply Chain

A warehouse management system optimizes a warehouse’s internal operation which can then
extend to the broader supply chain. Within the warehouse, a WMS streamlines the entire
warehouse process from inbound receipts to outbound deliveries improving operational
efficiencies and reducing costs. Warehouse staff achieve fast and accurate shipments by
reducing or eliminating unnecessary or non-productive activity. These savings in time and cost
coupled with improved processes and information can then be passed along to internal and
external partners enabling them to improve their own operations. For example, improved
inbound receiving reduces delivery times, enabling delivery partners to better leverage their
equipment and resources and shippers to better manage inventory levels. Improved data can
reduce risk and increase reliability, benefiting shippers, suppliers and customers. Data can be
shared and leveraged back to an ERP or to a customer, as well as to a TMS (Transportation
Management System). Product can arrive to its final customer more quickly while allowing the
partners upstream to improve planning. Inventory fulfillment service can be aligned to inventory
management; enabling optimized operations while reducing time & inventory carrying costs.

Warehouse Management Processes

Warehouse management includes six core processes. Each process influences the efficiency of the
next, so every step must be optimized for the warehouse operation to run like a well-oiled machine:

▪ Receiving. Check in and log incoming items. Verify that you’re receiving the right
quantity, in the right condition, at the right time.
▪ Put-away. Move items from the receiving dock to their correct storage locations.
▪ Storage. Safely store and logically arrange inventory to enable fast and accurate picking.
▪ Picking. Collect the items needed to fulfill sales orders.
▪ Packing. Prepare the picked items for shipment. They must be safely packed into the
correct packaging with an accurate packing slip.
▪ Shipping. Send out the finalized sales orders, ensuring that they are on the right vehicle,
at the right time, with the correct documentation, so customers receive their orders on time.
Warehouse Optimization
Optimizing your warehouse operation involves fine-tuning each of these warehouse management
processes. For example, when receiving goods, an organization can label items with mobile
barcodes or attach RFID tags to make them easier to find when picking. During put-away, a well-
managed warehouse operation stores items in the minimum amount of space to maximize the
capacity of the warehouse. Other best practices for warehouse optimization include storing popular
items in easily accessible areas and separating items that can easily be mistaken for one another.

Disadvantages of WMS

1. Many processes are integrated into a system - an error in one place entails errors in
others. In this way, a human error can cause the whole system to be inaccurate. To prevent such
situations, there are certain operations that the system will not allow you to perform (e.g. issuing
more goods than what is available in the warehouse).
2. Risk of choosing incorrect parameters before use. If the designed modules, categories, and
processes are not well-tailored to your company, the system will gather data in an inefficient
way. This may mean that your solution will not work as it was supposed to. To avoid this
scenario, at Kamee we ensure you get our support not only while we build the software but also
during the implementation and post-implementation stages.
3. Granting unsuitable levels of authorization to employees within the system. In the case of
custom solutions, it is the client who decides which users will be able to view, edit, add, or delete
data. Granting authorization to wrong people may prevent your processes from running
smoothly.
4. Potentially unsuccessful implementation. Like every investment, also this one entails certain
risk. To avoid unsuccessful implementation, it is important to make a detailed analysis of your
needs, choose a competent software house, consult your project with your employees in terms of
how the application should look like, as well as commit time to properly train your staff on how
to use the application. Working with our clients, we pay attention to each of these elements so
that you get a guarantee of the success of the project.
Amazon Warehouse Management

Amazon Owns Its Warehouses and Most of Amazon Inventory

Many retailers, both physical and online, don’t run their own warehouses. While they may have their
own backrooms, their major products are stored in a warehouse space that they lease or rent. To fulfill
orders, third-party transportation companies ship the goods to customers or to the
companies’ retail stores.
For Amazon, this isn’t a concern. Amazon stores the majority of the stuff it sells on its platform and,
increasingly, the stuff other businesses sell on its platform. In other words, the company manages a
gargantuan amount of space. By the end of 2018, Amazon owned 288 million square feet of space,
warehouse space included. Two-thirds of this property footprint is in North America.
Of course, at the center of Amazon’s success is a focus on scalability and customer satisfaction. It
knows what satisfies customers about online shopping: instant gratification. (Or sooner rather than
later gratification, to be more realistic.) From the beginning, Amazon understood that one of the biggest
challenges to ecommerce is a consumer’s desire to get their hands on a product instantly, the way they
can from a brick-and-mortar store.

Amazon’s Solution to the Consumer’s Need for Speedy Delivery

It focused on continuously reducing its delivery times. Most Amazon users have become accustomed
to two-day delivery while some areas even have access to same-day delivery, which gives physical
retailers a run for their money.
So, how has Amazon managed to pull this off while other ecommerce retailers struggle with fast
shipping?
From a strategic point of view, the answer is that Amazon has always invested in delivering the best
customer experience possible. While other retailers were content to keep delivery times long (and
weren’t being forced by the competition to speed up), Amazon pushed forward with figuring out quick
delivery. As a result, they’ve become the standard that other companies are scrambling to meet.
Perhaps more interesting to you though is that from a logistics point of view, the answer is about
transportation and warehouse management. Transportation affects the delivery time for obvious
reasons. If you have a warehouse in New York, it takes time to move an order to a customer in Georgia.
A less-obvious, but equally important, challenge to quick delivery is actually finding the right items
within the warehouse in order to ship them out to customers. This process—the order picking
process—is traditionally a labor-intensive activity.
Amazon set itself up to succeed in both of these logistics arenas.
Amazon’s Facilities Play a Vital Role in Its System
As mentioned above, Amazon manages a lot of land and much of this land consists of warehouse space.
Since Amazon is Amazon, it doesn’t approach warehouse management in a monolithic manner. It’s
created a thoughtful warehouse ecosystem to add structure to the Amazon system.
In fact, a better way to think of this ecosystem is as a distribution network.
The Amazon system divides its distribution network into 5 types of facilities:
• Crossdock centers: Packages from foreign vendors remain here until more stock is required
by the fulfillment centers.
• Fulfillment centers: This is the sort of environment a warehouse professional would be most
familiar with. This is where Amazon stores its goods, and it’s also where Amazon workers pick
 and pack products for customers. The company operates more than 175 fulfillment centers
globally.
• Sortation centers: Introduced in 2014, sortation centers are meant to improve “last mile
delivery.” No product is held at these locations. Instead, prepared customer packages move
through conveyor belts while Amazon associates and robots sort and route the packages by zip
code before they are sent to a carrier for final delivery.
• Delivery stations: Delivery stations are Amazon’s way of owning “last mile delivery” in its
distribution system. The last mile of many Amazon deliveries are handled by USPS, FedEx, or
UPS, and delivery stations give Amazon flexibility in areas with a high volume of orders.
• Amazon Prime Now hubs: The Amazon system for time-sensitive items, like groceries,
relies on Prime Now hubs. These hubs manage items that are typically delivered within 2 hours
of purchase.
The two facility types that are most critical to the Amazon inventory management are the fulfillment
centers and the sortation centers.

How The Amazon Fulfillment Centers Manage Amazon Inventory

Warehouses operate on an extreme version of that kindergarten lesson: Everything in its place and a
place for everything. The standard stock management wisdom is to divide your warehouse and its
shelves into sections and put away items accordingly.
For 99% of businesses, this is the way to go. If you simply placed SKUs onto the first shelf you came
across, you’d be hard pressed to find that item again when a customer orders it.
Amazon falls into the other 1% of businesses. It would be safe to assume that Amazon is not running
its trillion-dollar business using spreadsheets or off-the-shelf inventory management system. Rather, it
uses a highly sophisticated warehouse management system to keep its processes running smoothly.
This sophisticated system allows the company to embrace the chaos inherent in running a small
country’s worth of space.
You might be surprised to learn that Amazon fulfillment centers are not sectioned off in any discernible
way. There isn’t a consumer electronics section or a kitchen appliances section. When a shipment of
batteries comes in, an associate doesn’t find the batteries section on a warehouse map and then walk
over to that section. Instead, when goods come into a fulfillment center, associates place them wherever
there’s space.
And it’s one of the main reasons Amazon delivers goods to its customers so quickly.

How Amazon’s Fulfillment Centers Embrace Chaos

Here’s a breakdown of how the Amazon warehouse system manages an incoming order of goods:
• A box of toothpaste arrives to the Amazon fulfillment center
o An associate removes each individual tube from the box
o The associate proceeds to place each individual tube wherever there’s available space,
with no rhyme or reason (aside from the reason that there’s a free spot)
 o Before placing each item in its random location, the associate scans the barcode on the
shelf and on the product
o The system can now instantly identify where those 50 tubes of toothpaste are scattered.

Quick Putaway Process

It’s easy for associates to put items away. Rather than using directed putaway and crossing the entire
warehouse to put away a box of toothpaste, associates can quickly put items in the first available spot
they come across.

Efficient Order Picking Process

If you have a dedicated area for toothpaste, you’ll have to walk across the entire aisles when an order
for toothpaste comes in. With the Amazon order fulfillment system, there’s a greater chance that one
of those fifty tubes of toothpaste are closer to your current location, making it efficient for you to grab
one and continue with your picking path.

Randomness is Sensible for The “Everything” Store

Because people can buy almost anything on Amazon, it would be virtually impossible to store specific
quantities of every possible item. At any given moment, Amazon may only have one box of Oreos in
its DC. If Amazon carried a large quantity of every item (e.g., it created a dedicated section for Oreos),
it would have to keep a whole section e empty while it waited for a shipment of cookies, which would
severely limit the amount of storage space and would require an investment in more warehousing
space.

Unpacking Makes Sense in a B2C Environment

If Amazon were supplying Wal-Mart stores or CVS locations, it would make sense to keep the 50 tubes
of toothpaste in their boxes. But, since Amazon mostly serves consumers, it makes sense to unpackage
these items in advance rather than wait for an order to come in.

Amazon Warehouse Inventory Management Techniques

• Use Amazon automated warehouse management software for tracking purposes

The inventory and manufacturing of your company grow as you grow with Amazon. The task of
managing a large stock can be long and tedious. Physical documents and Excel sheets are obsolete.
You can manage your inventory more efficiently with advanced inventory management software
designed for Amazon.
Amazon inventory management software lets you store only what you need; nothing more, nothing
less. Additionally, it sends you alerts about packaging, manufacturing, and pricing changes.
Throughout the process, the software acts as a guide and simplifies trading. Utilizing inventory
management software can result in drastic growth for retailers.

Sales and profit-making data are also stored by the inventory tracking & control software. Because
the software tracks both the pricing and sales, it can also provide daily, monthly, and quarterly
reports upon request. With this data, you can create a strategy that suits your business needs.

• Seasonal sales fluctuations are to be expected

Christmas and other festive seasons are times when traders work harder and make more sales. In
order to avoid the seasonal supply-demand gap becoming too large, you need to keep up with the
pace. When you are shopping for your loved ones during Christmas, no one wants to see an out-
of-stock sign. Be sure your inventory is well stocked with an Amazon warehouse management
system. Furthermore, don't overstock the products since you might have to pay additional charges
for storage and packaging.

Also, not all products are eligible for seasonal sales. It is important not to store inventory based on
what products sell the most and what products sell the least. The decision should be based on
which products make more sales. Let your supplier know about the delivery delay and update them
as soon as possible. Keep in mind that it could be due to weather or stock issues when you
inventory your inventory.

• Get an idea of how much inventory you have on Amazon

As you can see, Amazon sells its inventory very quickly, and this is the exact rate of sales you get
through the Amazon inventory. Knowing this will help you stock the right amount of inventory. It
helps maintain a proper balance by preventing overstocking and understocking.

Typically, inventories are held for three months. Due to the fact that you are dealing on a global
level, you should have at least three months' worth of stock available at once. Transport is affected
greatly by weather conditions, so you don't want those to get in your way; that's why having a
comfortable inventory rate is imperative.

Software that tracks Amazon inventory can calculate your daily sales trends and determine your
exact inventory rate.

• Take your time when you need to

The best sales strategy entails gaining a maximum of customers and preventing any losses. Your
sales can shoot up by using exceptional marketing and repricing techniques, and they reach higher
levels than you had expected.

Your stock might be finished sooner than expected, but it will almost certainly lead to lower sales
in the future. Consequently, your inventory will be exhausted. A failure to supply and demand
cycle can lead to negative reviews due to delivery delays or 'out of stock' situations if you exhaust
all your inventory.

How does Amazon facilitate its sellers through its distribution network?

Using Amazon FBA services, how can business owners ensure their stock is well taken care of?
As you know, Amazon is currently the largest retailer in the world, and many vendors blindly
entrust their stocks and products to Amazon. They have built quite a reputation in this regard that
you don't have to do a background check on them or inquire about where your products go unless
it doesn't reach your customer destination.

We will explain some of the reasons why Amazon's inventory management is so effective.

Almost all of Amazon's inventory is in its own warehouses

Most retailers do not have their own warehouses, whether they are physical or online. Despite
having their own backrooms, most of their goods are stored in leased or rented warehouses. The
goods are transported to customers or to retail stores by third-party transport companies.

Amazon isn't concerned about this. In addition to hosting the majority of its own products, Amazon
sells items from other businesses through its platform. Thus, the company manages an incredibly
large amount of space. Amazon had a warehouse space of 288 million square feet as of the end of
2018. The majority of that space is located in North America. And with the best Amazon
warehouse management system, you can keep track of everything.
Of course, customer satisfaction and scalability are key to Amazon's success. Buying online
provides instant gratification, which satisfies customers.

Amazon understood early on that one of the greatest challenges to e-commerce is consumers'
desire to be able to purchase a product instantly, as they can at a brick-and-mortar store.

What is Amazon doing to meet consumer demands for speedy delivery?

Delivery times were continuously reduced. Amazon offers two-day delivery to the majority of its
customers, while some even offer same-day delivery to certain regions. Some areas even offer
same-day delivery, which puts physical retailers on their heels.

Amazon has been able to ship items quickly, despite other e-commerce retailers struggling. How
is this possible? Amazon has always focused on providing the best possible customer experience
from a strategic standpoint. Due to the fact that Amazon's competition didn't force them to speed
up their delivery times, they went ahead and did it. Amazon became the standard against which
other companies measure themselves.

Though from a logistics perspective, the answer might be more interesting to you since it's about
transportation and warehouse management. Labor-intensive work typically characterizes order
picking. In order to achieve quick delivery, it is also vital that warehouse staff locate the right
items within warehouses for shipment to customers. By offering these logistics services, Amazon
has positioned itself for success.

A vital component of Amazon's system is its facilities

Despite its greatness, Amazon does not operate in a monolithic manner when it comes to
warehouse management. In addition to its extensive land holdings, Amazon also owns a lot of
warehouse space. To provide structure to the Amazon system, it created a thoughtful warehouse
ecosystem.

In fact, this ecosystem can be better understood as a distribution network.

There are five types of facilities in the Amazon distribution network:

• 1. Centers for cross-docking. The fulfillment centers maintain the stock of foreign vendors'
packages as long as more is needed.
• Fulfillment centers. A warehouse professional is most likely to be familiar with this
environment. The warehouse houses Amazon's goods, and workers there pick and pack
products for their customers. Over 175 fulfillment centers are located around the world.
• Sortation centers. In 2014, sortation centers were introduced as a way to improve the
delivery of last-mile items. No products are held at these locations. Prepared customer
packages are moved through these centers by conveyor belts. The packages are sorted by
zip code by Amazon associates and robots before they are shipped to a carrier.
• Delivery stations. As part of its distribution system, Amazon uses delivery stations to
handle "last-mile delivery.". In many cases, the last mile is handled by USPS, FedEx, or
UPS, but delivery stations enable Amazon to handle high volumes of orders in high-traffic
areas.
• Amazon Prime Now hubs. Prime Now hubs are used by Amazon to process time-sensitive
items, such as groceries. Typically, these hubs handle grocery deliveries that occur within
two hours.

How Does Amazon's FBA System Work?

In addition to managing goods for Amazon's Fulfillment by Amazon customers (FBA), there's
another dimension to the system.

With one of the most sophisticated fulfillment systems in the world, other businesses would make
sense to pay Amazon to use their service. Due to the popularity of the FBA service, Amazon picks,
packs, and ships a business's products on its behalf.

A customer's FBA products are received and managed by Amazon in the following way:

• Upon receipt of the packages (properly sealed and labeled)

• When an Amazon associate scans a shipping label, he or she matches its contents with a
shipment ID in the system.
• An Amazon associate opens the shipping box to remove the items
• Every item in the box has a scannable barcode, which an Amazon associate verifies
• Inspecting each item, an Amazon associate determines whether it needs to be packaged
extra to prevent damage during storage or shipment out
• The receiving station receives the products
• In the receiving station, an associate tests the item on all six sides to ensure it is not
damaged
• Verification of title is performed at the receiving station by an associate

Once these steps are completed, the item is officially received and routed for stowing.
"Any business owner who uses Amazon Inventory System can learn from its opportunities
and lessons."

You can take lessons from Amazon and its logistics system, whether you want to learn from it or
use it to distribute your goods. Amazon has reinvented how it picks, packs, and ships products
despite traditional management wisdom. It has also invited other entrepreneurs to incorporate its
proven methods into their own companies.
 SUGGESTION
❖ A Warehouse Management System must enhances inventory management
by decreasing inventory levels, improving order fulfillment, and reducing
order cycle time.

❖ Warehouse Management System must be in a way that allows you to track

every unit down to the lowest level of detail for improved order fulfillment
and inventory accuracy.

❖ A Warehouse Management solution makes inventory management a much

faster, easier and efficient task.

❖ WMS also makes organizing and tracking shipments easier through

automation. Worker assignments, shipment routes and put aways are all
easily managed and tracked. This warehouse automation, up-to-date
information and real-time tracking all leads to better accuracy and happier
customers.

❖ Your warehouse plays a key part in ensuring that your company meets its
productivity goals. A Warehouse Management System adds efficiency,
consistency and quality control to the process by helping you move goods
through your warehouse at maximum speed, improving every stage of the
fulfillment process.
 RECOMMENDATION

➢ 1. Adopt lean warehouse operations practices :- “Warehousing has evolved

enormously from its historical roots as the simple storage of goods. Now, in an increasingly
globalised marketplace, high-level inventory management, rapid receiving and shipping
dock management and accurate, flexible pick and pack services have never been more
important.
➢ 2. Create omni-channel fulfillment centers:- “For some companies looking for
omni-channel fulfillment efficiencies, the trend has been to move away from DCs
dedicated to a single channel and instead have DCs that fulfill orders for multiple channels,
says Ian Hobkirk, founder and managing director of Commonwealth Supply Chain
Advisors.
➢ 3. Review effectiveness:- “You can’t improve something that you haven’t actually
analysed. It is important to gauge if you are using your available resources to the fullest. Is
there a flow of goods in and goods out? Any inefficiency within the chain will impact
negatively throughout the whole process. Quite often this means that to resolve a problem
in the system, the whole system has to be reviewed.

➢ 4. Understand how to organize your inventory:- “Many aspects of your e-

Commerce business may feel intuitive to you. You may have a great head for business or
be skilled at organizing your workflow. When it comes to managing your inventory,
however, throw intuition out the window.

➢ Most businesses initially stored their inventory like with like.

➢ 5. Schedule vendor receiving appointments :- “An easy way to help minimize
surprises and plan your dock staffing is to require all inbound carriers to schedule
delivery appointments. There are two different methods to schedule and they can be used
concurrently.

➢ “The first method is to simply assign each carrier or delivery a specific time or window
of time to deliver. The second is to assign either a specific or recurring daily, weekly, or
monthly schedule to arrive. This allows you to schedule staff accordingly and make the
best use of your dock.
 CONCLUSION

A warehouse management system provides many benefits. These may include real-
time inventory visibility, reduced costs, error-proofing, productivity or efficiency
gains.

It’s true that costs vary from solution to solution depending on your needs. Even
so, it’s important not to bargain hunt for your WMS solution.

It’s important to ask the right questions to define your needs. Then, partnering with
an experienced supplier can make a WMS implementation go smoothly.

Complex supply chains add to demands on warehouses. So as your company joins

the “lean” operations bandwagon, keep one question in mind.

WMS suppliers will charge an hourly rate to configure and install your software.
They will take your exact specifications and functionality requirements into
consideration.

Furthermore, developers should provide an upfront estimated number of hours for

your project.

Configuration costs can increase if changes exceed the initial scope of the project.
So this is where thorough planning and forethought on your end can prevent excess
costs.
Lastly, don’t forget any costs associated with on-going support or training. It’s a
good idea to see if your WMS provider offers a “train the trainer” approach. This
allows training of a super-user, or point person for your team. That person is then
used as an in-house resource for your team when questions arise. Also, many
WMS vendors provide options for supplemental training and technical support.