Inventory Solutions Part 3: Effective Procedures & Roles for Warehouse Personnel

Warehouse solutions are NOT one-size-fits-all. We know first-hand that every warehouse is unique. With decades of developing and implementing inventory solutions around the world, however, we have identified some fairly universal truths. This is the third installment of our blog series designed to share these common but critical steps towards accurate and efficient inventory management. If you missed Inventory Solutions Part 1: Barcoding Your Warehouse or Inventory Solutions Part 2: Cycle Counting & Barcoding Your Inventory be sure to go back and read these first. The reality is that each of these solutions are most effective, and really only effective, if utilized together.

1. Identifying Roles & Responsibilities for Warehouse Personnel
   Identifying roles and responsibilities for warehouse personnel is a very important aspect of the whole operation. For a smaller warehouse it is more likely you will have people doing more specific roles such as
   1. Receiving people
   2. Shipping people
   3. People assigned to the specific equipment (like forklifts, forklifts of different sizes,etc.)
   4. Quality Assurance (QA) people
   5. Packaging teams
   6. etc.
      Bottom line, you have to define your people’s specific responsibilities. By doing so, it establishes who assigns tasks, who approves transactions, who decides when to do a cycle count, and how to organize the work process. You should already know the system for these processes in place, so defining the approrpiate person to execute the process will set the balls in motion.
2. Establish Proper Procedures for Receiving, Moving and Shipping Items
   You most likely already have these procedures in place but they should be revisited and clearly documented to reflect and work in harmony with the new warehouse organization, barcoding system, and personnel roles.

This concludes our 3 part Inventory Solutions Blog Series. If you have further questions, feel free to reach out to us anytime. Our team of experienced warehouse organization and inventory tracking experts are here to help you find and implement the best warehouse solution for your organization! You can also download our free eBook “Organizing Your Warehouse.” Best of luck!