Most businesses involving products operate in great quantities. This includes food and the chemicals or raw materials used by other manufacturers. Scale of business is the modern secret to reducing unit cost and staying ahead of competitors who might have less capital. A warehouse also has many of the same logistical problems as a factory. A handful of tools are critical to all these industries.
Invest in an Outstanding Inventory System
A business with thousands of boxes must catalog everything in an easily updated database. In the bad old days, this required libraries of incoming and outgoing ledgers and the people who could read the scribbles of time-stressed inventory managers. While ledgers are still a part of the process in some factories or warehouses, at some point the information should enter a computer or network system. The more scanners can replace handwriting, the more efficient inventory management can be.
Keep Things Clean and Organized
Having a sophisticated inventory program doesn’t mean much if the physical state of your warehouse is confusing, messy and unorganized. Weekly cleaning will help prevent or resolve a myriad of inventory issues. You may have thought you shipped an order, yet your customers call and say they never received it. Lo and behold, the shipment in fact was behind other crates and pallets and wasn’t sent out. Weekly cleaning and a vigorous organization system can rectify many inventory discrepancies.
Industrial Scales and the Requirements of Law
The largest and most expensive scales allow whole trucks to drive onto them and measure the cargo contents. One of the larger providers in Texas is North Texas Scales. Knowing the basic weight of the truck allows the calculation of the cargo’s weight, although the total weight bearing on the tires is generally more important for transport fleets. The law establishes a maximum weight for cargo containers, although industrial scales can be used to weigh many large objects.
It Pays to Have an Experienced Workforce
Most warehouse owners dream of finding ways to get the job done with fewer man hours. Electric pallet jacks and conveyor belts work wonders to save time and money. While reinvesting profits can be a good idea, business owners should be aware of a threshold of no return. Retaining a number of dedicated and skilled employees can be critical to meeting unusual circumstances where powered equipment cannot cut it. Human intelligence is a part of a workforce, and experienced workers are hard to recover when released.
Some Old Equipment is Worth Retaining
Manual power jacks rely on human labor to elevate and move. While they might seem obsolete in the face of electric equipment, there are many situations when they must be employed on top of powered devices. Electric or pneumatic devices are complicated and require maintenance. Mechanically simpler devices seldom require maintenance. Whenever repair threatens to delay cargo, human power can still fill the workload.
Running a warehouse or factory is a complicated operation with many ways to solve the same problem. Expensive technology can increase efficiency, especially at peak productivity, but older tools should not be immediately thrown away. Having alternatives can prevent a schedule from breaking down.