Paper-Based Warehousing Costs You More Than Money
Changing from a paper-based system to a warehouse management system can seem daunting for any business. There are more obvious payoffs from implementing a system, such as increased picking accuracy, intelligent warehouse mapping, increased capacity, and automated reports, just to name a few. However, the benefits of a WMS are more wide-reaching than you might think and can make a difference to your employees’ attitude and performance.
Here are the key problems that arise from choosing to remain a paper-based warehouse.
Limited business communication
As businesses grow, communication between colleagues and departments can become harder to maintain, often leading to departments becoming increasingly insular. This is bad news for any business and bad news for morale and customer service. Cross-departmental communication becomes sporadic at best, or only happens when absolutely necessary (such as delivering completed picking lists to the warehouse manager or giving timesheets to the back office). This is made worse when the unforeseen happens, for example when staff sickness or absenteeism hits.
Unable to handle staff sickness
Staff sickness is something that can’t be helped, but the impact can be minimised when a company chooses to go down the paperless warehousing route. The ability to access vital knowledge on a system, rather than in someone’s head, means that if sickness does take someone out of work, it is easy for whoever is taking on that workload to effectively manage it. Once again, removing paper from the equation leads to fewer mistakes and lost time scrambling through paper and trying to catch up with and complete tasks that you are unfamiliar with.
Time-consuming
Another common issue with paper-based systems is the unnecessary time it takes to input the information onto a system. An example of this is when pickers fulfil a big picking load and relay this information onto the warehouse manager in the form of a printed out and amended excel spreadsheet. This leads to an interruption in the working day for getting this information to the warehouse manager, and creates further delays as the warehouse manager must compile the paper presented to him onto a spreadsheet. This becomes a constant game of catch up with the activity in the warehouse, rather than being able to see this information real-time, live on a screen.
Read our previous article 'Why visibility is the real problem for warehouses' to learn more about the benefit of digital technology for the logistics industry.
Increased errors
This lack of communication leads to more room for human error when requesting information from other departments, frustrating the best efforts of everyone in the chain; how many times do things fall apart simply because of incorrect or out of date information? Wasting your teams’ time like this takes them away from their actual job and adds no value to their working day. On a personal level, it can lead people to feel more of a ‘cog’ than being able to see how their contribution benefits the wider team and business. This is possibly why lower employee morale and retention if often a problem as warehouses head into seasonal periods, such as Black Friday and Christmas. At these especially busy periods it is vital that employees can do their job efficiently and feel part of a business that keeps them in the loop.
Software can help
Access WMS's (Warehouse Management System) live warehouse map gives you complete and accurate real-time information that brings - and keeps - a company together. Taking this idea further, even having apps to communicate updates or congratulate a colleague on a particularly impressive week, allows the team to keep up with the bigger picture - no matter what department they’re in or how long they’re contracted for. Not only does this mean that there is an open dialogue between all members of the business, but it a brilliant way to keep staff motivation high.
Implementing a WMS not only gives the business a bottom-line benefit, but increases retention, satisfaction and therefore productivity. So, as your business grows you know that your employees can all still stay connected, motivated, and feel part of a business that cares about customer service and staff retention as well as the bottom line.
