Inventory Control and Replenishment for Multiple Warehouses

Jan 7

Having multiple warehouses adds to logistical challenges. They multiply. There is growth in the retail industry, including high street stores and online retailers. You can usually offer better prices at scale, ensure higher supply, and increase your margins. It's tricky to scale up to multiple warehouses from a single warehouse, especially if inventory management isn't up to par.

In this article, we will discuss

What is warehouse inventory management?
What is the difference between inventory management and inventory management?
Warehouse management best practices
The best practices for replenishing warehouse inventory

What is warehouse inventory management?

The warehouse stock management process involves receiving, tracking, auditing, and managing stock in a warehouse or other facility to fulfill orders. The inventory of warehouses is also replenished after predetermined minimum quantities have been reached. We update your inventory levels to those that reflect historical performance. A warehouse manager focuses on managing incoming and outgoing products, similarly to inventory control. They keep track of all parts and know where they are located. If you require inventory management software, check out Inventooly.

What is the difference between inventory management and inventory management?

Unlike storefronts or warehousing, warehouse management primarily focuses on handling goods stored in warehouses or storage facilities. You need a process in place that ensures that supply does not disappear from your warehouse, so it is ready to sell when the time comes. Inventory control is used to track stock from the point of purchase to the end of the sale.

Inventory handling encompasses warehouse management by ensuring items are delivered to customers as soon as possible. Items are stored in predictable locations, and things are tracked from when they leave the warehouse until they reach their final destination. An efficient warehouse will enable employees to pick, pack, and ship products quickly after a sale or a transfer order arrives.

How do warehouse inventory management systems work?

Warehouse inventory control software such as Inventooly offers several key features to help you monitor the goods within your storage facilities. A warehouse management software solution is sometimes integrated into an ERP solution. Additionally, warehouse management software can also act as a standalone application. Managing your inventory across the entire ecosystem of your business is best achieved by purchasing a seamlessly integrated process.

Inventooly helps you acquire, track, and ship products to ensure you always know what's where and when. You could also predict customer demand and order products accordingly using historical sales data.

How to manage warehouse inventory efficiently.

For your warehouse to operate efficiently and successfully, follow these four steps. To maximize efficiency and move products quickly when needed, ensure these processes are in place when building your warehouse.

Make sure a warehouse manager is appointed.

Appointing someone capable of leading the warehouse is the first step to running it efficiently. The warehouse manager you hire for your business should have extensive experience operating a facility similar to that you manage. The warehouse manager oversees the daily activities of your workers, ensuring your inventory is scanned and categorized as necessary. Furthermore, they will easily maintain a birds-eye view of your inventory by interacting with your warehouse inventory control software.

Plan the warehouse layout.

Your warehouse layout will have a significant impact on whether your warehouse employees can pick, pack and ship items out quickly when a sale is made or when transfer orders are placed.

It is important to have an organized warehouse to ensure efficient operations since every warehouse is set up differently. Depending on what you store in your warehouse, you might want to design your space differently. Warehouses for large machinery, for instance, may have specific zones, but not aisles or bins, as they store smaller retail products.

Organize your workflow

The above steps will prepare you to put in place a specific workflow for the warehouse, as well as appoint a leader to oversee operations.

Someone with experience should manage this area. Your warehouse workflows are set up in close collaboration with them. You should pay attention to several key points:

What is the process for receiving new inventory?
Where does the new list go when it is received?
How is it tracked when stock arrives, moves, and leaves the warehouse?
Inventory management software should be implemented in warehouses.

Management software can make warehouse management tasks easier and more efficient, as well as update stock records in real-time. This has already been mentioned in this article. Your warehouse management software will reflect all your existing stock and its precise location in your warehouse. That is possible as long as your warehouse team properly scans and catalogs items as they enter and move throughout your warehouse.

The best practices for replenishing warehouse inventory

If warehouse inventory replenishment is going to be seamless, operations managers must follow the following best rules.

Automate the process of replenishing inventories

Inventory replenishment that is automated wins out every time over manual replenishments. As we know, the latter process is complex, time-consuming, prone to error, and may result in inventory backlogs, stockouts, and excess inventory. Likewise, determining to reorder points and order quantities is a complex process requiring accurate demand forecasting. These are nearly impossible to do manually.

Make sure you are monitoring and measuring the performance of your vendors

Businesses need to monitor their vendors' performance, forecast demand and automate inventory replenishment. The benefits of automated inventory replenishment can be negated by poor vendor performance, delayed deliveries, and inappropriate lead times.

Therefore, the success of replenishment efforts depends on monitoring and measuring vendor performance. Choosing reliable, accommodating order quantity requirements, and offering volume discounts is the best way to ensure the success of a business.

Your warehouses will have different needs, so consider each one individually

Balancing inventory across distribution centers is vital for companies with many SKUs and multiple distribution centers. Optimizing and maximizing inventory redistribution processes for multi-site operations can deliver significant benefits. Overstocks and stockouts are reduced, stock obsolescence is mitigated, income and profit margins are improved, and capacity utilization is improved.

Conclusion

Warehouse management is a larger inventory control process. Warehouse inventory handling differs a lot as compared to simple inventory handling. This article provides a comprehensive guide on warehouse inventory control and best practices to optimize your warehouse management. If you need further guidance, check us out at Inventooly.