inventory management

6 Effective Tips For Multi-Warehouse Inventory Management

Effective inventory management for your growing business is crucial. As your company transitions from a single-warehouse to a multi-warehouse model, you can encounter problems with inventory accuracy. Small problems that are easy to solve before your business growth, have now become big problems. When you have more than one warehouse, you need a multi-warehouse inventory management solution. With that in mind, we have 6 tips for you to consider: 

Tip 1: Optimize Communication Flows Across Warehouse Locations

Making sure that all warehouses are on the same page is harder than it sounds. If you are not using the right inventory management software, each warehouse is going to have its own filing system. Each warehouse will have its own order system, and its own way of maintaining inventory. Thus, the goal of any inventory management system should be smooth, cross-warehouse communications. When you have a streamlined process in place, mainting it becomes easy. There now exists consistent communication flow between and among the different warehouses.

Tip 2: Ensure That All Data Remains Synced Across the Organization

If you are not using an integrated warehouse inventory management solution, you may experience time lags as different warehouses update their systems. Thus, it’s very important that you look for ways to implement real-time data. Real-time processes allow for a flow that covers all the major facets of inventory management. This is especially true if you are regularly transferring products from one location to another. 

The real advantage of a warehouse inventory management software is that it has an integratedaccounting and sales function. This means that as soon as sales orders come in that information flows directly to your operations and logistics team. If there are changes to inventory stock, these changes immediately show within the accounting system.  This transparency is appreciated amognst company managers who regularly run reports giving them the confidence that all data is synced.

Tip 3: Re-Evaluate How You Do Warehouse Inventory Stock Counts

Since there are multiple ways counting inventory, your business needs to re-evaluate its method used in managing one warehoues. For example, what works well with just a handful of high-value items in one location will not work nearly as well for another warehouse location with thousands of lower-value products.

The problem with inaccurate, delayed, or otherwise flawed inventory counts is that it leads to problems for your inventory-centric business. Incorrect counts bring your orders to grinding to a halt. Chief among these problems is the ever-present threat of an inventory stock-out. With just a single warehouse location, it might be possible to detect a depleted stock level of a popular product. However, with multiple warehouse locations, it is easy to assume that “the other warehouse location” must have ample supply of this product. You can’t afford to assume. A multi-warehouse inventory management missing takes the guess work out of the equation, iltimately resulting in your customer’s satisfaction.

Tip 4: Change the Layout of Your Warehouse Locations

There are a few best practices for warehouse inventory management that are commonly shared across all industries. Chief among these is that high-volume and popular products should always be stocked near the loading dock (i.e. the exit). Over time, the time savings from this approach can really add up. When it comes to the overall layout, you also want to make sure that people pulling product off the shelf are not caught in a giant maze.

If you find that executing orders is taking too much time and leading to shipping delays, then it might make sense to create maps of the warehouse that can be shared with employees. And it definitely makes sense to label each shelf, each zone, and each area of the warehouse very clearly. In many ways, warehouse layout is just an optimization problem: your goal should be to reduce the overall path traveled by employees as they fulfill orders, and to make the most popular products easily accessible on the shelf.

Tip 5: Optimize Warehouse Locations For Geography

Geography always plays a role. In the best of all possible worlds, your warehouses would be located as close as possible to the end customer. Ideallt, instead of waiting for a product to travel from one end of the country to the other, your product arrives in the customers hands within 1-2 days. Saving on shipping and transport costs, and creating the best overall customer satisfaction. 

The reality is not all your warehouse locations are located within close proximity of yourcustomer bases. For one, there is the issue of higher labor and rental costs associated when a warehouse in a very densely populated metropolitan area. Moreover, there may be regulatory or tax issues involved with having a warehouse in another state, province or country. For that reason, warehouse location involves a number of factors, including the trade-off between rental costs and transport costs for a certain region. Tracking all these factors and their costs is a crucial part of your multi-warehouse inventory managment solution. You want to make sure that you have the ability and ease to account for everything – regardless of where your warehouses are located.

Tip 6: Look For Cost and Time Savings Based On Inventory Data Flows

As a responsible business manager you are constantly looking to streaml your logistical and operational flows. One way of doing this is by tapping into all the data that your business generates. Information about order transport and shipping times is helpful when you want to expedite shipping processed to move products from one location to another. Or, data entry into the system from accounting and sales teams is crucial in order to anticipate consumer demand for a particular product.

The more that your business can become proactive, and not just reactive, the more successful that it is going to be. By leveraging these top tips for multi-warehouse inventory management, you can ensure that your business stays one step ahead of the competition.

Contact us today for a free trial of Spire and expeience how we handle multi-warehouse invetory management. 

Real-Time Inventory Management For The Growing Business

Real-time inventory management is a way to streamline your operational business processes and gain more visibility into your inventory at any time. If you have not yet adopted real-time inventory management, here are five great reasons to start:

Reason #1: Greater Reliability

With software that provides real-time transaction posting, the data for your inventory provides your team with a more accurate count of quantities in stock. If an item leaves a warehouse shelf, it will immediately show up as a change to your inventory. As a result, your sales team will not be able to over-commit items when they are not on hand. Having reliable data empowers your employees by giving them greater confidence and ensures customer satisfaction by not overpromising and underdelivering.

Reason #2: Enhanced Visibility

Another reason to embrace real-time inventory management is that it creates a more detailed view of what’s happening within the organization’s operations. Having deeper insight is helpful, especially during peak periods, such as the busy holiday shopping season or a super sale. However, during busy times, businesses often overlook essential aspects of their inventory management to keep up with customer demands. Having insight into meaningful data on your day-to-day operations will better help the organization prepare for those busy times. 

Reason #3: Easier Reporting

Ever want to run an on-the-fly management report for a meeting or presentation and can’t because the whole process just takes too long? One advantage of using a real-time inventory management system is the ability to produce accurate reports at any time. Having on-hand access to the correct numbers allows your management team to respond to sudden spikes in supply or demand. When you can rapidly evaluate margins on item prices and immediately adjust your pricing if need be, your business owns a substantial competitive advantage. 

Reason #5: Better Scalability

As your business grows, investing in a system that can grow with you is a wise decision. Software solutions that allow your business to sustain that growth and continue it are solutions that will last you a long time. It would be best to have a solution that will not cap out or break down as your inventory grows. The ability to seamlessly replenish quantities of popular inventory items by rapidly issuing a purchase order is crucial. Immediately having that newly created PO and updating the expected amount on hand makes it so that your salespeople meet customer demands. 

Reason #6: Cost Savings

While there are upfront costs in implementing a new system, putting in the time to calculate what your expected ROI will be is worth it. Understanding the beneficial results from fewer stock-outs, shortages, and canceled orders has a financial impact on your business. How much time do employees dedicate to manually tracking inventory, producing reports, or waiting for accurate counts before placing orders? Consider how much you spend on software assurance, add-ons, and band-aid solutions to “make it work,”  only to be disappointed. In short, a new real-time inventory management solution can pay for itself in far less time than you might think. 

A practical and feature-rich inventory management software like Spire can drive significant value for your business. Spire can make your business more efficient, more productive, and better equip your team to respond to changing market conditions. 

Are you interested in hearing about Spire’s real-time inventory management to manage your business better? Get in touch with us!

Five Big Reasons for Inventory Management Automation

Too many organizations are put off by what they perceive as the cost, complexity and time of implementing a new solution to automate their inventory management. But fear not—there are actually five big reasons why inventory management automation should be a part of every organization:

Reason #1: Efficiency Gains

Let’s face it, manually keying in inventory data is time-consuming. When you automate the process, though, you’ll start to streamline the entire process of inventory management. Your whole organization will become more efficient as details about your inventory are updated automatically without the need for manual data entry.

Reason #2: Accuracy Gains

There’s also a hidden cost to manual data entry: human error. In short, even the fastest, most reliable employees don’t always key in data correctly, and that could lead to stock-outs when you can least afford them. You no longer have to guess about inventory levels, or rely on safety stock just in case your numbers were wrong.

Reason #3: Real-time Visibility

Best of all, automating the inventory management process means that you can obtain real-time visibility into your inventory. At any given point in time, you’ll know exactly how many items remain in inventory and this helps to keep your business running smoothly. You’ll also be able to produce the types of management reports needed to see how your business is performing at any time.

Reason #4: Scalability

Organizations make the mistake of thinking they don’t need to automate the way they manage their inventory because “they aren’t big enough.” However, this belief could severely constrain your ability to grow in the future. The time to automate your inventory management process is when it’s still at a manageable level so that it becomes more efficient as your business grows.

Reason #5: Integration with Other Business Processes

Implementing an integrated solution needs to be a priority. It’s the single best way of guaranteeing that every part of your business will be able to communicate with each other. After all, your products are the lifeblood of your business, why would you not want to make inventory management a top priority?

The good news is that Spire is a fully integrated accounting and inventory management solution that can be customized to your organization’s size and complexity. Often, you’ll find that business software with inventory management automation can pay for itself with all of the efficiency and productivity gains that it brings to your business.

Want to see how Spire can automate your inventory management? Sign up for a demo here.