How to Master Your Warehouse during Peak Season – Part II – The Solution

If importers and distributors can manage a tight ship during peak season, it's smooth sailing during those less-busy times.

Knowing how to work when the stakes are high and the deadlines are tight only makes you more capable and better prepared for those slower periods of business.

An industry-specific enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution is the tool you need to make it through your warehouse peak season. But you want to do more than simply make it through, than simply survive. You want to thrive. And to do that, your ERP needs to be equipped with the necessary tools for warehouse management success.

You'll be able to manage the complexities of your business that much easier.

In our first post, we wrote about the challenges of running a warehouse during peak season. Now, we're going to explore how an industry-specific ERP enables you to overcome those challenges and successfully manage your warehouse.

1. Keeping up with the volume of direct-to-consumer (DTC) orders

   When you have thousands of orders coming in daily, keeping up with the volume isn't easy. The first thing we urge you to consider: your warehouse structure.

   Our ERP allows you to implement strategies and processes throughout your warehouse to make it run more effectively and efficiently—allowing not only for the definition of zones, areas and bin locations but for the rules for how you wish to operate.

2. The time it takes to pull and pack orders

   Reduce redundancy. Reduce touchpoints. Maximize warehouse efficiency. Utilize the tools within your ERP to do all of this at once.

   Let's say you have 100 orders in a day. In previous years, you may have walked up and down the aisles a hundred times, picking the product for each of those orders separately. You'd pull product, place it at a pack station, pack it and ship it—one by one. This works okay when you have 100 orders, but as the volume grows, this becomes less efficient and less productive.

   But we can simplify this process. Streamline your tasks. Rather than walk the aisle 100 times to pick those orders, you bulk pull— walk the aisles once and pull all the product you need to fulfill all 100 orders. It may be worth keeping a cart with you, so you're not only able to pick product but keep it organized. Maybe packing along the way so that you don't have to repack all your product at the end of the bulk-pulling process.

   This, quite literally, means time back in your day—time to re-dedicate to more orders or more pressing tasks. A consumer goods ERP supports this kind of warehouse workflow, and if you don't have this shipping flow in place, it's a solution that can help you create one.

3. Using multiple systems for labels and paperwork

   It's time to reevaluate the status quo. You should have the option to print the label at a pack station or have it in the aisle when you're picking it and placing it in the carton. To produce parcel labels at the point you'd like to have them. It's small adjustments like these that make all the difference. That's time back in your day, money back in your pocket and maximized efficiency within your warehouse.

   There's also never been a better time to go wireless. Enable your workforce with the right tools. By providing your operators with hand-held devices, you're streamlining the data entry process. It's real-time inventory tracking and accuracy and leaves no time for picking errors. All the information your operators need is with them as they move throughout the warehouse.

Aptean Distribution ERP increases picking efficiency when picking a small number of products for a large number of orders by giving you the flexibility to stage orders during the pick demand process. And the warehouse management tools built into our ERP enable you to maximize your efficiency during your peak season. 

You need a solution that's going to work with you, not against you. One that's going to allow you to grow rather than stunt you. One that's going to position you for success despite the challenges you face to master your warehouse. Particularly during peak season, but also when it's not. You need a solution that prepares you for now and for what may happen next. A solution that gets you ready for what's next, now.

Want to find out how? Reach out, now.