Inventory Solutions Part 1: Barcoding Your Warehouse
Inventory Solutions Part 1: Barcoding Your Warehouse
Decades of developing and implementing warehouse inventory solutions around the globe have given the CoreIMS team some very valuable insights into the industry. Where this is a very monumental and long-term warehouse solution for your organization, we are constantly involved with every stage of this process. This gives us the unique ability to pull from numerous past experiences and “case studies”, if you will, to provide the BEST warehouse solution possible for your situation. That said, let’s start at the beginning.
Typically, when company management starts looking for inventory software it is because they need it to fix an immediate problem. This problem manifests itself in different ways. Here are a few common examples:
- You realize your warehouse count does not match your actual inventory
- Your bank tells you to buy inventory management system, because they must have a reliable information about your inventory for a line of credit
- Your cash flow restrictions are making it impossible to know what to order and when to satisfy your clients
Bottom line: You need to know your inventory in real time.
Unfortunately, in most cases, these are only the tip of the iceberg marking the beginning of your journey to the world of real time inventory tracking. Experience has shown that there is almost always a larger, underlying problem causing these symptoms. It boils down to the reality that your current business processes do not fit your current business requirements.
If what you have read so far sounds familiar, it means that your warehouse needs a complete makeover. This blog post will be the first in a series designed to highlight the most common solutions required to correctly resolve inventory tracking problems.
1. Properly Marking & Barcoding Your Warehouse
Properly marking and barcoding locations, isles, pallet locations, etc. is essential. If your warehouse has not been properly marked and barcoded you will never be able to find your items. You must create a simple and easy system for your isles, locations, pallet locations, etc. Give each location a clear, unique name. (That might sound like it goes without saying, but we’ve seen some very interesting stuff over the years!) Avoid location names like “near the fourth column” because the next guy on the job may mark the same space as “between fourth and fifth column” and it will be a problem to reconcile. Rather, develop a naming system that can be expanded to fit the entire warehouse with room for future growth.
When developing your system, you want to place your inventory in your warehouse in the most efficient way for fulfilling your orders. The simplest way, shown above, is ABC Classification. It involves putting faster moving items closer to the door (class A), slower moving a bit further (class B), etc. in order to minimize traveling time. This seems like a very simple task, but one must remember that you are figuring out what the fastest moving items are based on your impression that actually could be wrong.
Once your system is devised, all location names should be clearly marked on the floor or at the location preferably with barcodes.
Stay tuned for Inventory Solutions Part 2: Cycle County & Barcoding Your Inventory. If you have any questions in the meantime, feel free to reach out to us anytime, or download our free eBook “Organizing Your Warehouse”.