21 mistakes adding cost and killing productivity in your warehouse - #2

2. Inadequate paperwork

Nothing stops a process dead in the water faster than not having the correct paperwork or not having enough information on the paperwork to process the inbound or outbound order.  Any interruption to the normal process flow creates exception processing which is typically two or three times the time and cost of a standardised and optimised process flow.  These interruptions can become so normalised that your staff don’t even notice them any more.  

The classic symptom of this is when you walk into your warehouse and see two or more of your staff standing still with a piece of paper in their hands staring at your stock trying to figure out what to do next.  I once walked into the warehouse of a large online business and saw twenty or more receiving staff standing around looking bewildered!  Needless to say, product was not getting booked in and put-away, which means that stock could not be picked and customers were also being disappointed.

This has potentially worse impacts on the outbound side where inadequate information during order processing can have a direct impact on the customer.  Any processes relying of experience and storeperson memory put you at risk of error and slow down your processes.

The antidote is to conduct a process review of all of your warehouse processes and flow chart all the current business flows.  There are lots of great software tools available to do this but some A3 paper, pencil and an eraser will also do the job just fine.  These flowcharts must include physical and information flows.  

When you do this the exceptions will come to light.  Re-engineering the process flows is about removing exceptions by changing the processes and systems to consolidate exceptions into the main process flow.  Once your exceptions are limited to only 1% or 2% of your transactions that you cannot get around then you will have a more efficient process flow.

Re-engineering a process can involve changing physical flows to reduce the waste of motion.  Introducing new materials handling equipment.  Modifying your business system to change existing reports or create new ones so that the warehouse operators have all the information they need to process a transaction.

This is post is taken from an ebook that is now available as a bonus to members of the Warehouse Performance Initiative (WPI*).

The WPI is a place for learning how to improve your knowledge of warehouse operations improvement, sharing skills and ideas and helping other warehouse professionals.  Joining the WPI will give you access to a growing range of free and premium content which will have a direct impact on improving your warehouse performance when you apply it to your business.

You can also subscribe to this blog by email and get my future posts delivered to direct your inbox.