Managing a warehouse efficiently with returns forms

Your warehouse is the hub of your business, so it’s crucial that it’s a well oiled machine. It’s important to make sure your warehouse is organised, even if it’s packed full of stock, and that you have despatch and returns forms in place to make sure everything runs smoothly. The better managed your warehouse is, the more you’ll reduce costs, keep on top of your inventory and improve efficiency.

Floorspace

Making sure your warehouse floorpan is arranged efficiently is key to operations. Learning how to use your space effectively is something many business owners misjudge, taking up valuable space. Keeping all of your shelves together can help you save floorspace; using your space correctly will also help staff to do their jobs more efficiently, completing more tasks in a shorter space of time.

Product placement

Are your most popular products easy to locate quickly? Don’t have staff wasting time running around the warehouse to find products they may be fetching multiples times a day. Create a product placement plan, making sure all of your products are in an optimal location.

Use technology

There are many technology & software options available to increase warehouse efficiency. Using radio frequency, bar codes and voice-activated systems are just a few that are designed to speed up picking productivity, increasing levels of accuracy. Warehouse Management Software will also help to organise workflow and help you to get the best from your sequence performance.

Employ effective management

Experienced managers know about execution. They will be able to manage warehouse fulfilment, keeping your costs inline, worker morale high and customer orders running smoothly. Make sure training resources are always available and that you employ someone you can trust to run your warehouse as you would yourself.

Automation

Have you considered automating your warehouse? Many warehouses around the world have now deployed robotic automation, which can significantly reduce costs as opposed to employing workers.

Include returns forms

Including returns forms will not only help customers return products to you with ease, it will also help warehouse staff to process the returns efficiently, saving time and speeding up workflow.

Continuously improve your process

Regularly assess how you’re holding up against your KPIs and set objectives for improvement, review how things work and start from scratch if you see flaws. The metrics to help you measure performance generally fall into three categories, including inventory management, worker productivity and order fulfilment, so regularly check in on how your warehouse performs in these key areas.