Whatever you choose, be sure KPIs reflect your business mission statement and plan, so you will have measurable information going forward. These goals can be anything deemed most important in your corporate culture, including high inventory turnover, lower carrying costs, order accuracy, product quality, customer behavior and satisfaction, and future plans for your business. KPIs are the “golden tickets” for your business, giving you measurable goals you and your employees can work toward each day. In today’s marketplace, businesses need to have a grip on key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs are closely tracked so employees can work toward your goals.Specifically, front-end employees won’t have to spend time tracking where an error occurred and warehouse workers won’t end up sending the wrong orders, thus cutting down time spent processing returns. When data is consistent and precise, it will positively impact quality control in the pick, pack, and shipping process as well. The ability to scan barcodes rather than manually entering SKU numbers character-by-character can also make a huge difference in time spent.
Using a barcode inventory management solution to automate the data entry process reduces or even eliminates the errors that inevitably occur with a manual process. Over time, those mistakes add up, and a number of those mistakes won’t be caught, especially with typing numbers. Not only does it take just seconds to scan pertinent product information up front, you can later pull up important records on your computer, rather than wait to print reports in Excel, which won’t be accurate to begin with.Įven the most skilled typist will make an error every 300 keystrokes. With barcode scanners and a tailored inventory management system, you exchange piles of printed spreadsheets for accurate, real-time digital data that can be pulled up any time. It’s time to ditch pen and paper in all facets of your warehouse operations. Paper records will become a thing of the past.
Here are five ways inventory management increases productivity
If you are still manually tracking inventory, then you are missing opportunities for lowering your costs, increasing profits, and realizing heightened productivity. While revenue growth is the number one challenge for nearly half of small businesses (which employ 11 to 50 people), only 9% report that they plan to implement an inventory management system. Related Article: How Barcode Tracking Simplifies Supply Chain Managment Before you know it, years go by and your business remains stagnant. What’s worse is that you can’t make informed business decisions because your reports are not accurate nor in real-time. Too many man hours are used for sifting through piles of printed spreadsheets or handwriting inventory records. If you are one of the 46% of businesses that currently track their stock manually, using pen and paper, spreadsheets, or don’t track it at all, then you are wasting precious time each day. It should be working for you, not against you. Don’t get us wrong, your warehouse is a vital function in your business operations. Have you ever wondered why your growth strategies are struggling, or worse, never come to fruition? It’s likely you and your employees are spending too much time on other areas of business like inventory management.