Take a step inside any warehouse in the UK today and you’ll see it’s a fast-paced, high pressure environment. As consumer demand for ‘premium service’, click and collect, and same-day delivery increases and step by step on-line visibility of the picking and delivery process become the norm rather than the exception, it’s no surprise modern warehouse operations can be a challenging for the managers.
Customer demands
It’s clear that as ecommerce continues to increase, so do customer demands. When you order online you expect to know exactly when your purchase is picked, has been dispatched, is ‘in transit’ and what time it will be delivered to your chosen address.
As a result, warehouse managers need to ensure visibility, not just of the stock, but of the progress of the picking, and sometimes even manufacturing, process. This data is fed back to the warehouse management system which can then be communicated to the customer.
Staffing stress
This increase in customer demand poses another challenge for warehouse managers – whether or not they have sufficient resources to meet expectations Let’s look at one of the most vital processes within the warehouse – picking. Step back in time, and you’ll see that warehouse operators had to pick one set of items for delivery to a single location – the store, and usually for a collection at the end of the day or often the next. Today the workers are expected to do so much more – often being required to pick several small orders concurrently for multiple imminent collections for delivery direct to the consumer which can entail added value service such as gift wrap! With much tighter deadlines, the need to be flexible, multi-skilled and to have the ability to multi-task is key.
Quality of picking
We all know how frustrating it can be to receive an incorrect delivery, so shipping the wrong order is simply not an option. If companies want to ensure consumer loyalty the warehouse manager needs to be certain the warehouse operators are picking as accurately as possible and if they foresee any sort of issue they need to be able to take immediate pre-emptive action.
As such, warehouse operations have moved from something that went on in the background into the limelight, and can now affect brand differentiation by offering a more positive customer experience. Getting it wrong can literally make or break a business.
It’s time to take action
To overcome these challenges, operations managers often look to new technology. Many have found that voice technology offers the solution – increased productivity of course, whilst enabling picking accuracy rates of up to 99.98%, a level so high that companies using voice technology are able to eliminate their auditing process.
Voice technology provides workers with step-by-step instructions and guidance on exactly how to fulfill their task (increasingly with custom instructions per order). It enables them to work at their own speed and to perform tasks to the best of their ability. As tasks are allocated automatically via the WMS it also carries the additional benefit of removing any politics from the warehouse floor.
Additional Visibility
Voice technology, in conjunction with the WMS, often allows the warehouse manager complete visibility of order preparation progress. This means that workers can be moved around the warehouse to where they are needed most to ensure that orders leave the warehouse on time, and customer expectations are met, or even exceeded.
So is there a cure for warehouse manager headaches? Most definitely yes!
Motivating and enabling the workforce with a simple non-intrusive relevant technology that is easy to learn and even easier to use. Voice enabled workers are guided and mentored through every step of the process ensuring an uplifted and standardized performance that simply takes away the stress of regular business – freeing up the Warehouse manager to look forward to the next big thing!
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