warehouse problems essay

7 Warehouse Management Problems and Their Solutions

Warehouse management involves organizing, managing, and maintaining all the processes that occur in a warehouse, so that they run as smoothly and efficiently as possible. Even though some of these processes are automated and seem error-free, every warehouse operation is prone to mistakes and challenges. According to a report by McKinsey & Company in 2019, about £300 billion (approximately $385 billion) is spent each year, worldwide, on overall warehousing costs. And that amount doesn’t include the additional costs of correcting errors and mistakes.

Warehouse problems can affect the speed, efficiency, and productivity of either one particular warehouse operation or the entire chain of processes that are linked with it. In most cases, these errors are only identified after the process has begun or even after it has been completed. And by then, it’s usually too late to prevent the error—it may even be too late to reduce the amount of damage done. But with prior knowledge about the potential challenges that could occur in your warehouse operation, you can predict them beforehand and stop the damage before it starts. In this article, we will be covering some of the most common problems faced in warehouse management and what you can do to stay clear of them.

Accidental redundancy

Most warehouses perform multiple operations on each item, and those operations are strung together to create workflows. But if a workflow isn’t well organized, you may find that the same operation is being accidentally performed more than once. These redundancies increase your labor costs and take up extra time when you have to go back and reverse the mistake. This happens more often in large warehouses than in smaller ones, since there’s more space and more inventory to deal with.

Redundancy is often noticed in order picking, which is when products are picked from their storage locations in a warehouse to fulfil an order. In smaller warehouses, order picking is a one-person job which leaves little room for error. But in a larger warehouse, multiple people work together to pick products from different parts of the warehouse to fulfill a single order. Since the same order is passed around to multiple people, there’s a bigger chance for mistakes, like picking too many of the same products.

A solution is to invest in technology, such as a modern warehouse execution system (WES), that will help you automate the processes that are prone to redundancy in your warehouse. For instance, to help reduce redundancy in order picking, you could use barcode technology to scan the products that have been picked for the order and have the system notify the user of any duplicates.

Messy warehouse layout

Over the years, rising storage costs have pushed warehouse managers into making more efficient use of their warehouse space. But a survey conducted by Logistics Management back in 2018 suggests that it doesn’t always work—the average warehouse capacity utilized by manufacturers was only around 68%. Not having enough storage because of ineffective use of space is still a common pain point in warehouses.

Putting together an optimal warehouse layout can solve this problem. This includes maximizing use of the floor space and vertical space while leaving enough room for warehouse employees to pass through. It also means looking into ways to use automation and equipment to reduce labor and labor costs, improving the accessibility of products in the warehouse, categorizing inventory in a systematized way, and ensuring that inventory is stored safely.

To start optimizing your use of warehouse space:

Look into the technology that can help you organise your warehouse’s layout, such as a warehouse management system (WMS). Some WMSs can offer you a 3D model of the most optimal arrangement, if given the dimensions and measurements of your warehouse and inventory. You can also consider an automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS), which is a network of several computer-controlled pieces of equipment that automates your putaway and picking processes. Besides improving the speed and efficiency of your processes, an AS/RS can save a huge amount of otherwise wasted warehouse floor space.

If you’re not ready to upgrade your technology, you can always start simple instead. Use your existing solution for managing your inventory and sales to figure out what items from your inventory sell the quickest. Then make sure that you’re storing those items in the most easily accessible locations, so that they can be picked and put away faster.

Bad inventory management

Have you been experiencing any of these issues?

Expecting to find a product in a certain location, but realizing that it’s actually placed somewhere else.

Accepting an order on the assumption that you have enough stock to fulfill it, and only later finding out that you don’t. Now you have to place a backorder, which significantly extends your order lead time.

Denying an order after assuming that you don’t have enough stock to fulfill it, but then finding out that you do.

Trying to put away stock that you’ve received but having trouble finding where to place it.

Any of these problems can indicate that you haven’t been maintaining accurate records of your inventory and updating them consistently. According to a study conducted by Wasp Barcode Technologies, 43% of small businesses either don’t track inventory or use a manual method. Another survey by Peoplevox, found that 34% of businesses have delayed shipping because the products mentioned in the order were not actually in stock. Miscalculations can easily happen when inventory checking processes are done manually, since this leaves plenty of room for human error. Sometimes they can also happen when using outdated software.

One way to overcome these warehouse challenges is by switching to a newer solution. This could either be a system that’s specific to inventory management or an overall warehouse management software that includes real-time inventory management features. A typical system first collects your inventory data through a handheld or fixed device such as a barcode scanner. This information is then sent to your software solution, which catalogues and tracks your inventory.

Poor preparedness for seasonal demands

Certain types of products experience the same amount of demand all year round, whereas others are more popular during specific times of the year. Sudden influxes of demand that take you by surprise can do a lot of damage, as your warehouse might not be prepared to take on the orders. This could be because you don’t have enough products in stock, or because you don’t know where to store them on such short notice. It’s important to be aware of the current market trends and the fluctuations in demand for the products that you work with, so that you’re ready to manage your changing stock levels.

Here is how you can prepare for seasonal demands:

Stay in contact with your manufacturers, distributors, retailers, transporters, and any other sources you have from your industry. This way, every part of the supply chain can have the same information about demand fluctuations and can work together to respond accordingly.  

You can also use demand forecasting techniques to figure out what products you need in your inventory for the season.

Arrange and organize your products to help push out your seasonal products faster. This means placing them in the most convenient spaces in your warehouses, so that they can be easily put away and picked for orders.

Consider warehouse equipment and automation tools such as pallet flow rack systems, forklift trucks, and AS/RS to help your processes flow better and quicker.

Unsatisfactory order management

Even though order management is one of the most important operations in a warehouse, it is also the one that reports the most errors. Order management consist of all the processes that start the minute an order is received, from accepting the order to picking, packing , and shipping the right products to the right customer, and handling post-sales processes like refunds and returns if needed. A mistake in any one of these processes can collapse the entire workflow, which means redoing all the steps from the start. This is clearly a huge waste of time and money, and will mean that your customer will be getting their order later than expected.

To help keep their orders running smoothly, a lot of businesses choose to use an order management system . This can help you manage your overall order management and fulfillment processes, including shipping, customer notifications, and depending on the type of solution you choose, even inventory management.

In addition to saving time, high order fulfillment accuracy rates can also help your profitability. A study by AMR Research found that business with excellent order rates of 80 percent or higher are three times more profitable than those with order rates of 60 percent.

Excessive spending on labor

There are several types of tasks in a warehouse that labor workers are employed to handle such as general labor like cleaning, forklift operator, material handler, shipping and receiving monitor, shipping specialist, loader, product picking, stock clerk, and overall warehouse manager. With all the technology available today, most warehouses are looking for ways to invest in it. There’s a common notion that only automation and equipment is expensive. But what several warehouse managers fail to realise is that manual labour doesn’t come cheap either. According to Kane Logistics, labor is one of this biggest expenses some warehouses spend on, ranging from 50-70% of the overall warehousing budget.

Therefore, start by reviewing all the different labor work that is done in your warehouse, then look at the solutions and systems that you are already using. See if you can increase their usage by automating more tasks. An alternative that small businesses choose to do is to consolidate their warehouses with a partnering business to save warehouse space, and use the leftover money on automating more of their tasks. This prominently reduces labor costs. Only once you feel like you’re using all of your current solutions to the maximum of their potential, and you have just enough employees to take care of tasks that can only be done manually, is it time for you to consider adding more automation tools or even hiring more labor staff is necessary.

Poor damage control

Damage is unfortunately a common issue in warehouses, especially ones that deal with a large amount of inventory and heavy-duty equipment. While it’s difficult to completely avoid damage, you can always work on ways to reduce it.

Install protective gear like pallet rack protectors, special nets for racks, guard rails, anti-slip tape, lockout systems, low clearance warning bars, and accumulation conveyor systems. Also make sure your pathways are well lit and wide enough to comfortably move around products. These measures will help you protect your employees, equipment, and inventory and alos prevent accidents in the workplace.

Conduct regular inspections throughout your warehouse to look for early signs of damage to your equipment, storage units, or transportation vehicles. For instance, check out your storage shelves and pallets for overloading, cracks, and breakage. In addition to this, look for other types of damage as well, that can eventually cause problems, such as water damage or even pests.

Warehouse management is one of the most essential processes that happen in a warehouse, and it’s definitely not one where you can afford to mess up. Since most tasks involved in warehouse management are linked in some way, a problem in one can lead to costly errors in the others as well. Accidental redundancy, having a messy warehouse, bad inventory management, poor preparedness for seasonal demands, unsatisfactory order management, excessive spending on labor, and poor damage control can cost you money and derail your warehouse operations. By educating yourself about the potential warehouse challenges your warehouse may face and their solutions, you can reduce the amount of damage caused by these errors or even prevent them from happening at al

Using a warehouse management system can help you maintain a smooth running warehouse, free of these hiccups. Check out Zoho Inventory, a cloud-based warehouse management solution  that can manage multiple warehouses, organize your sales and transfer orders, provide real-time data about your inventory, and give you accurate reports in a flash.  Try our free trial today  to learn more!

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Top 10 Warehouse Management Challenges & Their Solutions

Warehouse challenges and problems can hinder productivity, scalability & growth. Here we have listed top 10 warehouse management challenges and their solutions.

In this blog

Introduction to Warehouse Challenges

Warehouses are an intricate ecosystem with several different processes working in tandem to serve customers effectively. Warehouse management challenges act as a major roadblock in the efficiency and productivity of the warehouses and can cause serious damage to the complete warehouse workflow. 

Recent events have warranted warehouses to change their business dynamics and stay profitable while fulfilling customer orders as well and the best way of ensuring sustainability and longevity for your warehouse is to overcome some of the common warehouse management challenges.

Managing laborers efficiently, making the most use of available warehouse space, and adapting to seasonal demands and other issues require warehouse managers to stay on top of their game at all times and get ahead of warehousing challenges. 

Let's explore some of the key challenges in warehouse management. 

Top Warehouse Management Challenges

This article will highlight 10 of the most common warehouse management challenges and how they affect your business.

1. Inaccurate Inventory Information

Inaccurate inventory management can be one of the several warehouse challenges. It causes picking problems as workers can go to a location where the product isn't available. The same can happen while storing products in a location that's already full.

Manual processes of updating inventory data lead to improper stock information, the buildup of obsolete inventory, and workers spending a lot of time in physical checks and error correction.

These less-than-optimal processes end up wasting a lot of valuable time and money for the warehouse being one of the most crucial warehousing challenge.

Incorporating Hopstack's automated warehouse management system that has a robust inventory management and optimization module can help automate all these activities and alleviate errors.

2. Inefficient Space Utilization

A poorly configured warehouse can cause challenges in inventory management for the warehouse manager. The average warehouse capacity utilization is only 68% proving that warehouse spaces are not being utilized efficiently.

With an optimal layout, warehouses can utilize their floor and vertical space better to store as many products as possible making layout optimization the perfect counter action to warehouse challenges.

Warehouse setup mistakes can also lead to unnecessary time wastage in searching for high-frequency and fast-moving items. The setup inefficiencies have a direct impact on profitability as the more time a picker spends in finding a product, the fewer orders they can fulfill. 

3. Improper Labor Management

Labor costs can comprise nearly 65% of the total warehouse budget. Laborers are an integral part of the warehouse and managing them effectively can improve the overall productivity of different warehouse processes.

With staff ranging from associates to managers, and the availability of expensive equipment, managing a large labor force can become chaotic and complex leading to major warehouse management challenges. 

Warehouse managers have to make important decisions for getting the most out of the available workforce. They have to find areas where automated systems can pitch in to reduce labor costs and make the order fulfillment process more efficient

4. Following Rudimentary Processes

While warehouse digitalization is picking up speed in several industries, most warehouses are still following obsolete paper-based processes. Challenges in warehouse management like manual data entries, excessive handling of products, and passing the same ticket among different workers can be time-consuming and costly.

With business dynamics changing post the COVID-19 era, warehouse managers need to adapt and evolve quickly. 77% of the organizations are serious about automated warehouse systems and mapping a plan to maximize data-driven performance.

Using modern warehousing technologies such as barcode scanners helps in streamlining warehouse processes and counter problems in a warehouse. Automated warehousing systems move fast , complete tasks more efficiently, and eliminate duplication of efforts.

Monthly roundup of top stories in e-commerce fulfillment and warehousing.

5. Adapting to Seasonal Demand

Changing customer demands is something the warehouses can't control, but it is one of the key challenges of warehousing. Seasonal changes, economic cycles, trending products, and other factors lead to fluctuations in customer demand.

The shifting customer demand cycle poses some serious challenges in warehouses in terms of product fulfillment . There can be a dip in sales in some months while demand can surpass inventory levels in other months.

Keeping a balance between demand and supply is very essential for the fulfillment process . There shouldn't be any gaps between the warehouse and other aspects of the supply chain, especially procurement and transportation.

Hopstack's advanced WMS and prep center software helps warehouse managers in responding to changing demands more effectively. They can bring changes in product placement, order in-demand stocks early, optimize the picking module, and manage their transportation network properly.

6. Substandard Picking Process

Picking is one of the most important steps in any warehouse. It causes some of the biggest problems in warehousing as well. As soon as an order is placed, a picker is assigned with the responsibility of completing the full order. If picking isn't done efficiently, a lot of time would be wasted in fulfilling a single order.

There can also be picking errors and inventory issues that delay the process even further. This hinders the warehouse's fulfillment process and its capability of fulfilling as many orders as it can.

50% of a picker's time is spent in movement and not picking items. Picking should be done in an optimized way to minimize movement and time consumption. Enhanced inventory layout and warehouse automation systems reduce picking errors and increase picking efficiency.

Proper data capture and storage also make it easier for pickers to identify which product is placed where. Hopstack's Warehouse Platform boasts of an advanced picking module that utilizes AI algorithms to create optimal batches to improve picking efficiency.

7. Flawed Order Management

With the advancement in technology, consumers have multiple sources for ordering a product. For a warehouse with an omnichannel sales channel, managing customer orders coming from multiple channels can be a tedious task and complete warehousing challenge.

Orders can come in from company websites, e-Commerce portals, offline sales channels, and more. Excel sheets and pen-and-paper-based methods can give rise to several errors in order management  and fulfillment .

This can lead to challenges with capacity allocation, pickers being sent to retrieve incorrect orders, and customers receiving something they didn't order. For such problems in warehouse management, an order management system is a must. 

8. Managing Heaps of Data

Warehouses can generate a lot of data while executing different processes. While this data can be too large to manage and analyze manually, it holds valuable insight for improving warehouse productivity and making it more efficient.

Tracking goods movement through the supply chain, managing logistics operations, multiple delivery channels, and dealing with the returned or damaged products can be a herculean task for warehouse managers, especially for the small and medium-sized warehouses that don't have a lot of budget at their disposal.

Hopstack's advanced data-mining and analysis capabilities can help warehouse managers in having better visibility of their warehouse operations by transforming digital data into actionable intelligence .

9. Variety in Products Stored

Another one of the top warehouse challenges is that most businesses operate on the Pareto Principle where 80 of their sales come from 20% of the inventory.

However, constantly finding that 20% of products can be difficult given the frequent shifting landscape. With customer demands changing in an instant, warehouses are storing a wider variety of products than they did before.

Incorrectly forecasting customer demand and ordering large stocks of a product that end up staying on the shelves can hurt the warehouse's ROI. Similarly, having less stock of a fast-moving product will lead to warehouses missing out on customer orders due to unavailability.

10. Poor Quality Control

With hundreds of orders coming in and going out every day, quality control can sometimes end up taking a backseat. Due to the pressure of fulfilling orders quickly, workers can sometimes overlook key details during picking, packing, or shipping. This can lead to customers receiving poorly packaged, incorrect, or damaged products and having a forgetful shopping experience.

The pandemic has posed serious challenges for quality control as warehouses are trying to do more with less. Proper quality control can eliminate the hassle of returns and below-par customer service.

Intelligent warehouse management and execution systems like Hopstack help in digitizing different warehouse processes to make it easier for managers to keep an eye on every operational detail and help you overcome challenges in warehouse management .

Our team of experts collaborates with warehouses to understand their issues and warehouse challenges and offer solutions to help them in the long run.

Robust inventory management and optimization, paperless automated picking in warehouse , multi-channel order management, and seamless integration with devices increase warehouse efficiency which, in turn, enables them to serve more customers and grow revenue.

All You Need to Know About Optimizing Your Warehouse Layout

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11 Warehouse Management Challenges and How to Avoid Them

Quick summary.

Learn about the 11 most common warehouse management challenges and how to avoid them using a cloud-based WMS and more.

The consistent flow of the entire supply chain hinges on proper warehouse management . Any little glitch or hiccup can create challenges that have a ripple effect. Learning how to avoid and overcome obstacles is the key to ongoing and long-term success.

Third-party logistics (3PL) warehouse management is a juggling act at best. It involves organizing, managing, and maintaining a multitude of processes that occur on a daily basis in a warehouse. To keep the 3PL warehouse functioning, all processes must run smoothly for maximum efficiency.

Most warehouse managers have embraced automation and warehouse management system (WMS) software to run virtually error free, but no system is without problems. Mistakes and challenges can frequently occur.

In a report carried out by McKinsey & Company, it was found that around $385 billion was spent worldwide in warehouse costs, which does not include the added expense of mistakes and errors.

Warehouse problems throw a wrench in the speed, productivity, and efficiency of operations, which then impact the entire supply chain process. Unfortunately, the errors that occur often take place after it's too late and the damage has already occurred.

Prior knowledge of the potential stumbling blocks can help you run reconnaissance to prevent the problems before they happen. As Benjamin Franklin famously said, “ a n ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure .”

 1. Dangers of Accidental Redundancy in the Warehouse

Clearly, taking steps to avoid problems helps ensure that the 3PL warehouse continues to function well to ensure satisfied customers and consumers.

No one has a crystal ball and can successfully predict the future. However, a successful Extensiv 3PL Warehouse Manager strives to run damage control before problems occur by familiarizing themselves with the most common problems faced by the supply chain and how to avoid them.

With proper warehouse functions, eliminating redundancy is the name of the game. To function effectively, everything must flow smoothly like a well-oiled machine. If a problem occurs, then a warehouse manager expects to notice it immediately; after all, the squeaky wheel gets the grease! However, what if the problem occurs as a result of accidental redundancy?

Warehouses perform a huge magnitude of operations for each item. All of the processes are strung together to create efficient workflows. If a problem occurs in the supply chain, then operations can become duplicated. The redundancies impact labor costs and take a toll on a 3PL's bottom line.

Redundancy mistakes occur most frequently in large warehouses during order picking. Products are picked from the warehouse storage location to fulfill the order. In big warehouses, the same order is often managed by more than one person, which leads to the likelihood of problems such as picking more than one of the same product.

Investing in a warehouse management system helps to automate processes and reduce the incidences of redundancies. With order picking, the use of barcode technology that scans the products that are picked to fulfill the orders notifies the user if there are any duplicates that accidentally occur. 

 2. Warehouse Space Efficiency

Storage costs continue to increase and as the burgeoning demand for ecommerce grows, the dilemma of warehouse space takes center stage. Despite the best of efforts, storage space often remains underutilized.

Logistics Management carried out a survey that found that the warehouse capacity being used by manufacturers hovers at only around 68% in many situations. Running out of storage space due to ineffective planning has become an all-too-common pain point.

Focusing on mapping out an effective warehouse layout can often solve problems by maximizing floor space and focusing on vertical space. Ideally, employees should easily pass through the warehouse without encountering roadblocks.

The use of automation along with modern equipment will lower labor costs and improve accessibility throughout the warehouse. An effective warehouse management system improves the categorization of inventory, so it is stored easily and within accessible reach.

Tips on optimizing warehouse spaces includes:

• Examine the technology needed to organize the layout of the warehouse such as using a WMS. Many WMS software companies offer a 3D models or digital twins where you can provide dimensions and measurements of the warehouse along with inventory.
• Automate the putaway and picking processes with automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS), which are made up of a network of computer-controlled pieces of equipment.
• Improve speed and warehouse processes to help save wasted floor space.

Warehouse managers who are not ready to upgrade technology can instead try to improve the warehouse inventory so it can be placed in a more accessible location for easier picking at a later date.

As the business grows, such a lax process can actually cause more problems than it solves and send the manager scrambling for an innovative WMS solution to overcome the obstacles and problems.

Many are surprised that warehouse layout is so important, but the correct or incorrect design can truly make or break a 3PL. There is no ‘perfect’ design for every warehouse. The pattern that fits one 3PL might fail to meet the needs of another. Product type matters when mapping out an effective warehouse system.

The most popular items should be located at the front with easy accessibility to facilitate rapid picking and shipping. Forklifts should never have to travel to the far areas of a facility to reach the most in-demand items. Accessibility hinges on types such as pallets, cartons, batch numbers, and other factors that vary depending on the industry served.

Complex categorizations of inventory usually need voice direct systems or radio frequency to instantly obtain data and reduce the frequency of errors while improving product delivery.

 3. Poor Inventory Management

Subpar inventory management leads to a lot of problems such as the following issues:

• Misplacing products by thinking they should be in one location but are actually in another area of the warehouse.
• Not having enough stock to fulfill an order or being out of stock, which causes the need for a backorder and increases your lead time.
• Cancelling an order because you don’t think you have it in stock but later find the item in the warehouse.
• Losing an item after putting away the product.
• Delayed shipping because items are not actually in stock.
• Miscalculations that occur during the inventory checking processes which can happen during manual methods.

If a 3PL warehouse experiences any of the above problems, then the management has failed to maintain an accurate record of inventory in real-time. Warehouse management often doesn’t track inventory correctly, or they use an error-prone manual method.

Poor inventory management occurs when things are managed incorrectly with manual processes or outdated software. The best way to overcome the logistics challenges is with updated warehouse management software. Ensure that the new software offers real-time management features.

Extensiv 3PL Warehouse Manager is a cloud-based WMS system that offers complete inventory management, task automation, and delivery visibility to customers, so problems are reduced.

 4. Failing to Be Prepared for Seasonal Demands 

Depending on the time of year, there are seasonal demands. Some products are needed more frequently during the summer months and others during the winter, not to mention the high demand for ecommerce products during the holidays. 3PL warehouse management that fails to be prepared during the year’s different seasons can quickly sustain a great deal of financial damage.

Common warehouse management problems that occur are:

• Failing to have sufficient stock of needed items.
• Misplacing items.
• Inability to locate the needed products on short notice.

Preparing to meet seasonal demand is a necessity. Warehouse staff have to effectively manage their stock levels.

Tips to prepare for seasonal demands include:

• Remain in contact with distributors, retailers, manufacturers, transporters, and other sources.
• Maintain accurate information so that every aspect of the supply chain is ready to meet the demand fluctuations and can work together seamlessly.
• Use forecasting techniques to determine the effective methods needed to figure out seasonal inventory levels.
• Organize and arrange warehouse products to help rapidly push seasonal products.
• Place items in convenient locations throughout the warehouse to easily put away and pick orders.
• Use warehouse equipment and automation tools such as forklifts, AS/RS, and pallet flow rack systems to process the flow in a better and quicker way.

5. Poor Time Management

Failing to manage time correctly impacts picking and location of the inventory, which causes significant delays throughout the whole supply chain.

Automation tools such as RFID labels, barcode technology, order authorization, and WMS solutions all work together to manage processes in real time so repeated tasks are avoided and execution times significantly reduced to improve time management.

 6. Problems with Order Management

Order management is a cornerstone of any 3PL warehouse and is often one of the most common areas where errors occur. The process of order management starts from the second the order is received through the picking, packing, and shipping process until the order reaches the consumer. Additionally, a 3PL usually oversees the post-sales processes such as refunds and returns when needed.

A single mistake in the order management process can cause everything to collapse like a house of cards, and the entire workflow to come to a standstill.

Steps will often have to be conducted again from the beginning, which causes time loss, chisels away at profitability, and impacts the reputation of not only the 3PL but also the ecommerce customers that partner with the logistics provider.

Using an order management system (OMS) helps keep orders running smoothly by optimizing order management and fulfillment processes such as shipping, inventory management, and customer notifications. Warehouse managers can save time, achieve higher order accuracy rates and benefit with greater profitability. 

A study carried out by AMR Research showed that order rates of 80 percent or higher experienced a profitability rate that was three times more profitable than warehouse with an order rate of only 60 percent.

  7. Spending Too Much on Labor 

Laborers carry out a multitude of tasks within a warehouse such as cleaning, material handling, receiving, shipping, forklift operation, stock clerking, warehouse management, product picking, and loading.

Many warehouse owners mistakenly believe that automation and equipment account for a sizable amount of operating expenses, but manual labor is also expensive. Many warehouses spent over 50% of their budget on labor alone.

Conducting a complete review of the diverse types of labor being performed in the warehouse helps create solutions and systems that can curtail expenses. Increasing automation often lowers the costs and labor expenses, which saves on the budget.

  8. Carrying Out Too Many Procedures 

Extra operations, reprocessing, rework, and unnecessary handling that are carried out from overproduction, shortage, or defects cost the 3PL time and money. Overcoming unnecessary steps can streamline the warehouse process so it becomes more agile and faster, which promotes an improved customer and consumer experience while enlarging the company’s profit margins.

  9. Traceability and Connectivity Problems 

Software allows complete traceability throughout the supply chain. Relying on manual processes or outdated software can quickly lead to traceability and connectivity issues. Any loss of control over inventory and issues with the continuity of the supply chain can cause problems for everyone involved with the process.

WMS software provides the tools needed to maximize a 3PL’s processes and create transparency to overcome any traceability or connectivity issues.

 10. Ongoing Damage Problems

With any warehouse, large or small, inventory and heavy equipment can sustain damage. Warehouse management cannot always avoid these mishaps, but they can take steps to reduce the number of incidences.

Measures to take to reduce damage to inventory and equipment and protect against accidents:

• Install protective pallet rack protectors on gears
• Use special nets for racks
• Install anti-slip tape and guard rails
• Hang low clearance warning bars
• Utilize lockout systems
• Implement an accumulation of conveyor systems

Conducting frequent inspections of the warehouse helps catch any early signs of damage to vehicles, equipment, and warehouse storage units. Look over storage shelves and pallets to catch cracks, indications of breakage, or overloading. It is also imperative to stay vigilant for any signs of structural issues that could lead to water damage in the warehouse or pest infiltration, which would easily destroy and taint storage items.

 11.  Gathering Delays

Entering SKUs manually slows the entire process, leading to gathering delays and human errors. To optimize gathering, you’ll want to invest in a leading WMS that both helps you plan efficient gathering routes to provide a short response time as well as substantially increases employee productivity.

With Extensiv’s leading WMS solutions, warehouse managers can better meet the needs of their customers through full integration. With our REST API platform, our cloud-based WMS effortlessly connects to systems to provide accuracy with mobile scanning, print labels, integrate shopping carts and marketplaces, manage custom integrations, and more.

Warehouse Management Best Practices

The warehouse is an crucial component of any supply chain. If warehouse operations fail, then the entire 3PL could conceivably start to crumble. A WMS is imperative to ensure an optimum customer and consumer experience every step of the way. Below you’ll find several recommendations on warehouse operation and administration.

• Focus on designing a complete supplier fulfillment program that improves the relationship that exists between companies and suppliers. The program should outline product handling information and transport times.
• Implement an electronic notification program for labor that streamlines all warehouse operations, client satisfaction, and labor planning.
• Regularly perform stock audit cycles that check inventories so you can better control your supplies and avoid any interruptions or holdups in operations.
• Rely on cross-docking techniques to effectively move goods from the supplier’s location to the customer without needing to always store them. Such a process can better optimize order fulfillment speed.
• Utilize slotting to change the location of products to meet demand.

Every company will have its own requirements with warehouse logistics . Automation is a great asset when solving challenges in the warehouse. An effective WMS will also help you manage all necessary operations.

Conduct continuous improvement techniques to avoid or correct mistakes before they become major problems. Whenever a problem arises, warehouse managers should instantly try to investigate what, where, when, and why the incident happened so they can take the steps needed to fix the problem or avoid the issue in the future.

Carrying out necessary modifications helps avoid mistakes that can prove costly or damage customer relationships.

Rely on Technology to Reduce Warehouse Management Errors

Even common warehouse errors take their toll on profitability. 3PLs that rely on manual processes and fail to incorporate technology into day-to-day operations are usually the ones that experience the most frequent problems. A WMS is easy to implement and accessible to logistics companies of all sizes.

Embracing technology might seem like a natural step for forward-thinking warehouse managers, but many continue to cling to manual processes coupled with stacks of paperwork.

Manual inventory management systems rely on humans to track all products and then take the time to enter the information into the computer accurately and quickly. The entire process is rife with human error that can occur at multiple stages. Any time an employee interacts with a product or carries out inventory processes manually, there is a substantial risk of mistakes.

A paper inventory system is inefficient and vulnerable to expensive errors. Manually conducting anything also takes up excessive employee time, which drives up labor costs.

The biggest step that a warehouse manager can take to increase efficiency, reduce workforce cost, and speed up processes is to embrace technology. A WMS can practically wipe out shipping, receiving, picking, and packing mistakes.

A WMS is designed for many functions that help a 3PL manager ensure that their warehouse is operating efficiently.

A few examples include:

• Tracking products from the minute they are received at the warehouse until they are delivered to consumers
• Monitoring all productivity
• Checking for accuracy
• Planning routes for operators
• Picking products to fulfill orders
• Automating all billing
• Sending invoices in seconds
• Integrating with accounting solutions and ERPs
• Providing flexible Extensiv 3PL Warehouse Manager pricing
• Rapidly calculating charges for storage
• Tracking all items via the cloud
• Automating orders
• Creating scalable workflows
• Utilizing directed putaway to store inventory

A WMS helps 3PLs oversee more orders, integrate their systems, and manage workflows. They can effectively grow orders by 22% while offering value-added services.

Use Your WMS to Its Full Potential

In some cases, a 3PL might have a WMS in place, but they fail to use the system to its fullest potential. One of the most underutilized aspects of a WMS is the system’s ability to perform regular cycle counts of the warehouse inventory.

The act of performing regular counts helps staff recognize discrepancies and patterns that could show a problem with the inventory and help reduce incorrect counts.

Regular counts also assist with overcoming employee theft. Just the knowledge that regular counts are performed usually acts as a deterrent to many criminal activities.

Studies have shown that employee theft accounts for 44% of inventory disappearance, so overcoming the problem helps expand the bottom line and create a more stable work environment.

A report released by the National Retail Security Survey showed that employee theft caused $34.5 billion worth of loss. A WMS utilized to the program’s fullest potential helps lower the incidences of stealing, supplier fraud, and administrative errors to help increase a 3PL's profitability.

The WMS offered by 3PL Central, an Extensiv Company, was designed specifically for 3PL warehouses. The software is trusted by over 12,000 3PL operations professionals to effectively grow their business and overcome warehouse challenges. Using an innovative WMS solution lets warehouse managers focus on operations, customer satisfaction, and business growth.

Whether you are looking to avoid costly warehouse mistakes, meet future challenges, reach more clients, or manage day-to-day operations, you’ll want to try Extensiv’s cloud-based WMS solution.

Contact Extensiv to schedule a demo .

Warehouse Management Challenge FAQs

What are the biggest challenges in warehouse management.

The biggest warehouse management challenges are a lack of or inaccurate inventory management, delays in the global supply chain, and poor time management. These challenges can be addressed by implementing a WMS.

How do you solve warehouse management challenges?

Many common warehouse management challenges can be solved by implementing a warehouse management system (WMS). These automated systems help brands and 3PLs keep track of inventory and improve their supply chain management while automating otherwise time-consuming processes.

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7 Major Challenges of the Warehouse Management

 specialized fleet / containers,  raw material transportation,  one of the fastest growing sectors, globally,  efficient logistics can cut down expenses,  reducing transit wastage another vital focus area.

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Aakanksha Gupta is a senior content specialist at WELPL. She is a passionate and eclectic content writer with proficiency in mobilising thoughts into words. Apart from being a digital native, she is a language enthusiast with a knack for visual storytelling and technical writing. As a writer, she is an easy-going and detail-oriented person who can convey your brand message with efficiency. She firmly believes that words are the best and highest form of self-expression.

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24 Apr 2024

Why Not Outsource? Benefits of 3PL Warehousing Solutions

Efficient warehousing operations are key to the success of all businesses. As your business expands, managing warehouse logistics in-house can be complex and costly. You also have other areas, like finances and marketing, demanding your attention. Well, you don't have to do everything alone.

Third-party logistics (3PL) offers a strategic solution. With 3PL warehousing, businesses can delegate their warehouse related tasks to experts. These experts handle everything from receiving and storage to shipping. Thus, you can focus on your core business activities.

In this blog, we will explorethird-party warehousing benefits. We will learn how outsourcing can be a game-changer for your business. So, let's get started!

What is 3PL Warehousing?

3PL warehousing is a short form of third-party logistics warehousing. It refers to outsourcing warehouse related tasks to specialized companies. These 3PL companies offeroutsourced warehouse solutionsthat cover everything from storage to order fulfillment. They take care of inventory management, picking, packing, shipping, and order fulfillment. Plus, they also provide secure storage facilities and warehouses in strategic locations. These 3PL warehouses have trained staff, technology, and spacious spaces to store goods. Thus,warehousing service providersensure smooth operations with their expertise.

Businesses of all sizes can benefit fromwarehousing outsourcing services. Small and mid-sized organizations can get access to resources that they lack in-house. While large organizations can scale their operations and reduce costs with 3PLs.

By outsourcing, businesses can focus on their core activities, like customer service, finance, and marketing. So, you can run your business while 3PLs take care of warehouse logistics tasks. Some morethird-party warehousing benefitsinclude improved inventory accuracy, profitability, and scalability. All in all, it is a viable solution to streamline your supply chain operations.

Responsibilities of 3PL Warehousing Service Providers

Here's a quick look at the responsibilities of3PL warehousing service providers:

• Scheduling and receiving inventory to the warehouse.
• Checking and inspecting incoming goods for their quality and quantity.
• Accounting, managing, and sorting goods based on their characteristics.
• Storing products in secure spaces and in proper conditions.
• Providing value-added services, such as kitting, labeling, and assembly.
• Picking, packing, and shipping products.
• Arranging for the transportation of goods.
• Using advanced technology for inventory tracking, order processing, and reporting.
• Optimize costs associated with warehouse and logistics operations.

Why Should Businesses Consider Outsourcing?

Businesses should consider the option of outsourcing for several reasons. First, 3PLs specialize in various aspects of supply chain management. They have the expertise to solve complex supply chain challenges. You can focus on running your business while 3PLs manage your supply chain processes. Plus, you can expand into new markets with the vast network of 3PLs. You can enjoy access to expert services, tech, and networks. 3PLs also provide flexibility and scalability. This allows businesses to respond to changes in demand without making any investments. All in all, outsourcing is a cost-effective and strategic solution for businesses.

The Top Benefits of 3PL Warehousing Services

Here's a look at thebenefits of third-party logistics warehousing services:

• Cost Savings

One of the most significant benefits of 3PLwarehousing servicesis cost savings. 3PLs already have industry expertise and infrastructure. This way, businesses can avoid heavy investments in infrastructure. Plus, 3PLs can negotiate rates with carriers. This further helps reduce transportation costs for businesses.

• Enhanced Customer Service

With 3PL solutions, businesses can enhance their customer service levels. 3PLs often provide value-added services. These include customized packaging, order tracking, and reverse logistics. This helps businesses deliver a superior customer experience.

• Flexibility and Scalability

3PLs offer flexible warehouse solutions that can easily scale up or down as per the changing needs of businesses. This scalability allows businesses to adapt to fluctuations in demand without having to invest in additional resources.

• Industry Expertise

When it comes to supply chain management, 3PLs are experts in it. They can streamline all aspects of the supply chain. They have the knowledge of industry best practices and the latest technologies. This ensures businesses benefit from optimized warehouse processes.

• Increased Operational Efficiency

By delegating warehouse services to 3PLs, businesses can increase overall operational efficiency. 3PLs use advanced technologies and streamlined processes. This helps optimize inventory management, order fulfillment, and reverse logistics. Ultimately, this leads to faster turnaround times and improved customer satisfaction.

• Focus on Core Competencies

Outsourced warehouse solutionsallow businesses to focus on their primary processes. By leaving logistics to 3PLs, you bring your focus on tasks such as accounts, marketing, and customer service. Delegating supply chain tasks to experts allows businesses to allocate more time and resources to their growth.

• Geographic Reach

Many 3PLs have a vast network of transportation and warehouses. This allows businesses to expand their geographic reach without the need for additional infrastructure. So, businesses can reach new markets and customers and supporting their growth objectives.

• Access to Advanced Technology

Warehousing service providersinvest in the latest technology systems to optimize processes. By outsourcing, businesses gain access to these advanced technologies without having to make any major investments. This includes live inventory apps, order management systems, warehouse management systems.

• Risk Mitigation

Entrusting warehouse-related tasks to 3PLs can help businesses mitigate various risks associated with logistics. 3PLs have the expertise to handle inventory management, regulatory compliance, and transportation challenges. This reduces the risk of errors, delays, and disruptions in the supply chain.

• Competitive Edge

Finally, outsourcing to 3PL providers can provide businesses with a competitive edge in the market. By using the expertise and resources of 3PLs, businesses can optimize their SCM processes. They can also reduce costs, and improve service levels, positioning themselves for long-term growth.

Bottom Line

To sum it up, the benefits of third-party logisticswarehousing are undeniable. The most notable of these are cost savings and efficiency gains. This enables businesses to enjoy competitive advantages. By outsourcing warehouse related tasks, businesses can focus on their core activities. Plus, they can scale their operations and deliver excellent customer service.Outsourced warehouse solutionsalso offer flexibility and scalability. This way, businesses can navigate the complexities of the supply chain. All in all, businesses can achieve success with the power of 3PL warehousing.

17 Apr 2024

Top warehouse automation companies in india.

In today's modern supply chain landscape, warehouse automation has emerged as a game-changer. It is revolutionizing the way businesses manage their warehousing processes, such as inventory control, material handling, and order fulfillment. Warehouse automation involves he use of advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, and software solutions to optimize day-to-day warehouse tasks. This not only improves productivity but also reduces costs and errors. With the growth of e-commerce and the need for quick order fulfillment, the demand for warehouse automation solutions in India is at an all-time high. By working with reputable warehouse automation companies, businesses can streamline their operations, improving accuracy, efficiency, and profitability. From cutting-edge technology to innovative solutions, these companies are transforming warehouses into hubs of productivity.

In this blog piece, we will take a look at the topwarehouse automation companiesin India, highlighting their features to help businesses make the right choice. So, without any further ado, let's get started!

The Best Warehouse Automation Companies in India

• Warehousing Express Logistics Pvt. Ltd. (WELPL)

When it comes towarehouse automation solutions, WELPL is a trusted name in the industry. WELPL provides end-to-endwarehousing servicesbacked by advanced technologies. With a comprehensive range ofsupply chain managementservices, they ensure seamless operations from storage to distribution. They have a vast network ofautomated warehousesin India that are equipped with the latest technologies and security systems. It utilizes automated material handling systems, bar-code/RFID, and scanner technology to optimize workflows. Moreover, WELPL implements Inventory Management Systems (IMS) and Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) to streamline day-to-day processes and improve overall productivity. This also gives businesses complete transparency and visibility into their inventory levels, order statuses, and warehouse operations. What truly sets WELPL apart is its customer-centric approach. WELPL's cost-effective and flexible solutions make them a go-to option for businesses seeking reliable and tech-enabledwarehousing services in India.

Ware IQ is renowned for its expertise in providing efficientwarehouse automationsolutions in India. With a focus on innovation and reliability, it offers a wide range of automation technologies to optimize warehousing operations. Their specialized services encompass automated material handling, robotics integration, andwarehouse management softwaresolutions. By leveraging their extensive experience and industry knowledge, Ware IQ delivers tailored solutions that drive cost savings and efficiency.

• Warehouzez- The Digital Supply Chain

Warehouzez is a leading provider ofwarehouse automation solutionsin India, revolutionizing the digital supply chain landscape. The company offers a whole range of tech-driven solutions, from inventory management and storage to transportation and order fulfillment. Warehouzez has a widespread network ofautomated warehousesin India that are equipped with modern technologies, such as barcode scanners, CCTV cameras, RFID tracking, and more. Their emphasis on automation enables businesses to achieve unprecedented levels of efficiency and flexibility. By integratingautomated warehouse systems, Warehouzez optimizes inventory management and order fulfillment and streamlines operations. Their commitment to innovation ensures that clients benefit from state-of-the-art solutions tailored to their specific needs. With Warehouzez, businesses can navigate the complexities of modern supply chain management with ease. It's proven track record of success makes it a trusted 3PL partner for businesses looking to enhance their warehouse capabilities and stay ahead in the competitive market.

• Mahindra Logistics

Mahindra Logistics is renowned for its end-to-end logistics services and robust warehouse automation solutions. Leveraging advanced technologies such as AI, IoT, and warehouse robotics, Mahindra Logistics offers a suite of automation solutions aimed at improving productivity and driving cost efficiencies. Their services encompass automated storage and retrieval systems, pick and pack solutions, and smart inventory management platforms. Mahindra Logistics' emphasis on flexibility and scalability makes them a preferred choice for businesses of all sizes seeking to modernize their warehouse operations.

Stockarea stands out in the industry with its innovative approach to on-demand warehousing and order fulfillment solutions. Catering to the needs of businesses ranging from startups to enterprises, Stockarea offers a wide network of shared and dedicated warehousing spaces equipped with modern automation technologies. They provide real-time visibility into inventory levels and order processing enabling businesses to optimize their supply chain operations efficiently.

Benefits of Working with a Warehouse Automation Company

Businesses can unlock a whole world of benefits by working with awarehouse automation company, meeting customer demands, and maintaining a competitive edge. Let's tap into the benefits of partnering withwarehouse automation companies:

• Increased Flexibility and Scalability

Warehouse automation solutionsare designed to adapt to changing business needs and market demands, providing businesses with the flexibility to scale their operations up or down as required. Automated systems can handle a wide range of products and SKU variations, allowing businesses to diversify their product offerings without compromising quality. By automating repetitive tasks, warehouse automation frees up resources that can be allocated to strategic initiatives, fostering business growth.

• Improved Operational Efficiency and Productivity

Warehouse automation companiesleverage the latest technologies that eliminate manual errors and inefficiencies. This results in smoother and more streamlined warehouse operations. For example, automated material handling systems reduce the time spent on tasks such as picking, packing, and shipping, allowing employees to focus on higher-value activities. With automated processes, businesses can achieve higher throughput rates and meet tight deadlines with ease.

• Supply Chain Visibility

Automated warehouse systemsprovide real-time visibility into inventory levels, order statuses, and shipment details, enabling businesses to monitor and manage their supply chain more effectively. By analyzing data at every stage of the supply chain, businesses can identify bottlenecks, optimize workflows, and improve overall supply chain performance. Improved visibility allows businesses to make informed decisions, proactively address issues, and respond quickly to changes in customer demand or market conditions.

In a Nutshell

The realm of warehouse automation is rapidly evolving, driven by the increasing demand for efficient supply chain management solutions. The top warehouse automation companies in India offer innovative solutions and technologies to meet the diverse needs of businesses. From cost savings and efficiency gains to scalability and supply chain visibility, partnering with a top warehouse automation company in India offers a multitude of benefits. This can propel businesses towards success in today's competitive marketplace. Additionally, it is essential to choose the best warehouse service provider to ensure streamlined operations. In all likelihood, WELPL is the best choice for businesses looking for automated, cost-efficient, and reliable warehousing services. The company can help clients solve their supply chain challenges with its exceptional services and solutions.

09 Apr 2024

Fulfillment center vs. warehouse: which is right for your business.

In the realm ofsupply chain management, the termsfulfillment centerand warehouse are often used interchangeably. Although they share similarities, they have different purposes and service offerings. Afulfillment centeris fundamentally responsible for processing, packaging, and shipping customer orders. Whereas a warehouse focuses on thestorage and distributionof goods. By choosing the right solution, businesses can efficiently meet customer demands and stay competitive.

In this blog post, we will offer a comparative analysis offulfillment centersand warehouses, helping you choose the best fit for your business. So, let's get started!

What is a Fulfillment Center? How Does it Work?

Afulfillment centeris a facility that specifically manages the storage, processing, and shipping of customer orders. These facilities are well-equipped with the latest technology systems to streamline order fulfillment processes and meet the demands of e-commerce as well as retail businesses.E-commerce fulfillment centersplay a crucial role in ensuring timely delivery of orders, thereby enhancing customer satisfaction.

Let's take a look at how these centers operate:

• Receiving and Storing :Upon arrival, the goods are thoroughly checked, inspected, and stored in designated areas.
• Order Processing :The orders received from customers are processed and priortized for fulfillment.
• Picking and Packing: Items are picked from storage areas based on the received orders, then packed securely to ensure safe transportation.
• Shipping :Packed items are then labeled and prepared for shipment, with options for several shipping methods and carriers to meet customer preferences.
• Returns Management/ Reverse Logistics :This involves handling product returns, checking returned items, updating inventory levels, and processing refunds or exchanges.

Benefits of Utilizing a Fulfillment Center

E-commerce fulfillment centersoffer a plethora of benefits for businesses, such as expedited shipping times, enhanced customer satisfaction, and improved profitability. By utilizing these facilities, online businesses can meet the ever-evolving demands of customers and enjoy a myriad of benefits.

By outsourcing fulfillment-related operations tothird-party logistics(3PL) partners, businesses can reduce overhead costs associated with maintaining their own storage space, equipment, and personnel.

• Faster Order Fulfillment

With optimized processes and state-of-the-art technology, these centers can fulfill orders accurately and quickly, leading to shorter delivery times and increased customer satisfaction.

• Focus on Core Business Activities

Outsourcing fulfillment-related tasks to experts allows businesses to focus on their core activities, such as product development, marketing, and customer engagement, leading to improved overall productivity and profitability.

• Scalability

Fulfillment centersoffer scalability, allowing businesses to easily accommodate fluctuations in order volume without the need for significant investments in infrastructure or resources.

What is a Warehouse? How Does it Work?

A warehouse serves as a storage facility that allows businesses to store goods before distribution. Essentially, warehouses are large buildings equipped with pallet racks, shelving units, and security systems for the safe storage of products. Within a warehouse, goods are organized based on factors like size, weight, and demand, making it easier for staff to locate and retrieve items when needed. These facilities play a prominent role in inventory management, logistics, and supply chain management, providing businesses with space to store products and fulfill orders efficiently. Nowadays, warehouses have evolved intoe-commerce fulfillment warehouse, managing the entire cycle of order fulfillment.

Let's understand the workings of a warehouse:

• Receiving Goods : Incoming goods are received at the warehouse loading docks, where they are unloaded, inspected, and checked for quality and quantity.
• Storage and Organization : Products are stored in designated areas within the warehouse, often organized based on factors, such as size and demand.
• Inventory Management : Warehouse workers monitor inventory levels, track stock movements, and coordinate replenishment activities to ensure adequate supply.
• Distribution and Transportation : Packages are packed, labeled, and prepared for transportation to their final destination, whether it's a customer's address or a retail store.
• Order Management : When orders are received, warehouse staff pick up products from storage shelves and prepare them for shipment according to customer requirements.

Benefits of Using a Warehouse

From cost-effectiveness to increased control over inventory management, warehouses offer a whole range of benefits that can propel your business towards success.

• Cost-Efficiency

Warehouses offer a cost-effective solution for businesses needing storage space. By renting a warehouse, businesses can store inventory in bulk quantities at a lower cost per unit compared to storing goods in smaller, more expensive spaces.

• Control Over Operations

Working with awarehousing companygives businesses greater control over their inventory and supply chain operations. They implement inventory management systems, processes, and security measures, ensuring efficient handling and organization of goods.

• Centralized Distribution Hub

Warehouses serve as centralized distribution hubs, strategically located to facilitate efficient distribution of goods to customers or other final locations. This centralized approach minimizes transportation costs and reduces delivery times, enhancing overall supply chain efficiency.

Warehouses offer flexibility and scalability for businesses to adjust their operations as needed. As business grows, warehouses can accommodate increased inventory levels and higher order volumes, ensuring seamless scalability without compromising on service quality. Moreover, they provide storage solutions for both short-term and long-term durations.

Fulfillment Center vs. Warehouse: A Comparative Analysis

While the terms "fulfillment center" and "warehouse" are often used synonymously, they share some differences as well. It is important to understand these differences before making the final choice between these two options.

• Duration of Storage: Long-term vs Short-term

Fulfillment centers are designed for short-term storage of inventory, holding goods for a shorter duration before they are picked, packed, and shipped to customers.

Whereas, warehouses offer both short-term and long-term storage solutions. They accommodate bulk quantities of goods that can be stored for extended periods before being distributed to retail locations or wholesalers.

• Difference in Operations: Services and Use-Cases

Fulfillment centers focus primarily on order fulfillment operations, including receiving, processing, picking, packing, and shipping customer orders. They are ideal for businesses prioritizing fast order turnaround times and seamless logistics.

Warehouses serve a wider range of functions beyond order fulfillment. While they handle some aspects of order processing and distribution, warehouses are primarily focused on storage and inventory management. They cater to businesses needing space to store excess inventory, raw materials, or finished goods for future distribution or production.

Final Words

Determining whether a fulfillment center or a warehouse is the right fit for your business depends on several factors, including your specific business needs, the nature of your products, order volumes, and more. While fulfillment centers offer end-to-end solutions for rapid order fulfillment and enhanced customer satisfaction, warehouses provide cost-effective storage options and greater control over operations. By carefully assessing your business requirements and considering the benefits of each option, you can make an informed decision that aligns with your strategic objectives and positions your business for success in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

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Logistics: Modern Warehousing Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Modern Warehousing building Flexibility in Operations

The trade-off between present and future investment.

This paper discusses how new technologies and new techniques are changing the fundamental ways in which warehousing is carried out. Increasing competition coupled with higher demands from the consumers for value addition drives the need to significantly cut costs and find new ways to add value all along the supply chain. The key is to cut costs by doing away with redundant activities, and focusing on making the organization leaner, so it can react faster to changes in the market. Efficient supply chain management has become critical in adding flexibility in the organization, so new systems are being developed to not only automate activities but efficiently coordinate and control them in such a way that maximum value is delivered to the end consumer.

New technologies and modern software are reshaping the way warehousing take place. For example, Warehouse Management Software started to flourish in the 1980s, but now, by integrating with other modern software, it is building much more flexibility in the company’s operations.

The Warehouse Management System gives more control to the supervisor by keeping a track of inventory and on the people dealing with the inventory. The software uses statistics and demand trends to forecast weekly activities and inventory requirements. It has helped to significantly cut down costs, reduce delivery time, and the number of workers required. With lower delivery time and lower costs, the end beneficiary is the consumer, who enjoys higher quality products at lower costs.

This system, integrated with other software yields even more benefits for the company. WMS coupled with Warehouse Control System (WCS) enables the supervisor to see the status of the inventory in real-time, with updated information, enabling spontaneous, on-the-spot decision making (Cutler, 2009). Thus, the WMS keeps track of inventory and people, and WMC helps maintain control over operations by enabling the supervisor to access real-time updates.

Similarly, future systems will be such that the WMS will interact directly with the material handling equipment, thus enhancing the speed and building more efficiency into the system. By integrating systems in such a way, the supervisor gets consolidated, up-to-date information, and he is thus in a position to make spontaneous changes as far as inventory management and delivery are concerned. Such consolidation of systems also paves the way for just-in-time systems, where the order amount is smaller, thus inventory levels are lower. The result is a cleaner way of working by pruning down excessive amounts of inventory and workers required to handle that inventory. When operations are leaner, the company automatically becomes more flexible and reactive to change. (Graham, 2003)

Another technological advancement that is fast revolutionizing warehouse management is Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). This technology goes one step further from bar-coding, as this form of identification can carry a lot more information than bar codes, and this information can be modified or updated. Moreover, RFID also allows inventory to be accurately tracked. Again, this allows the warehouse supervisor to get updated information with regards to the status of the inventory and puts him in a position where he can make on the spur, informed decisions, thus making operations more flexible and adaptable. (Graham, 2003)

The best part about RFID is that it’s developing technology and only in its early phase is showing enormous potential for a huge success especially in a logistical business where tracking of products is required. This technology puts a company closer to its dream of efficiently manage its supply chain where inventory losses are minimized, holding costs are diminished and ordering takes an optimal accuracy thereby reducing this cost as well.

In the future, there will not only be integration of various software and systems, but also the integration of software with personnel. Workers would be continuously logged into the system and remain connected through touch screen or voice-activated technology. Not only this, but suppliers would also have access to the networks. Thus, there would be more transparency in the entire supply chain and effective communication and coordination would pave the way for a more efficient and cost-effective way of managing the supply chain. More communication and real-time coordinated activities would again build more flexibility into the system, whereby all relevant parties would be able to respond to each other’s needs and demands in a fast, cost-effective way. (Graham, 2003)

In order to successfully use the latest technologies available to cut costs, reduce redundancies, and build more flexibility in the supply chain, it is, therefore, necessary to integrate different systems available so as to maximize their efficacy. At the same time, personnel also need to be integrated with the system, and the system should be such that it allows for all relevant parties to be networked together so they can constantly coordinate and communicate with each other. Supervisors and workers need to be trained as to how to effectively utilize the technology available so they know how to fully exploit it.

The management of the company can either allocate its resources to cut current warehousing costs, or it can plan for the future by making investments, and carrying out research about the upcoming technologies which will make warehousing more efficient in the future. The trade-off here is that investing in the future will result in long-term profitability, but might raise current costs incurred to conduct research, training, and investments in the latest technology. (Tompkins, 1998)

Incurring this trade-off, however, is necessary in order to maintain sustainable competitiveness. Unless warehouse design is updated and kept in line with the latest technology, processes will not be streamlined to the extent that is needed to cut costs and deliver maximum value to the customers. In such a case, there would be no return on investment and thus contribute as a loss to the company.

This paper has discussed various technologies that are being developed which will revolutionize modern warehousing. Some of the technologies named here include integrated Warehouse Management and Warehouse Control systems, Radio Frequency Identification systems, and networked supply chains. All these are geared towards pruning down redundant activities, making the organization leaner and more cost-effective, and in doing so, making the supply chain more flexible.

However, it is advised that organizations should not rush into any technological shifts before carrying out an adequate cost-benefit analysis. Every organization and every industry is different; therefore, each company must do its own research to see whether the benefits gained from technological shifts justify the costs incurred. Also, research needs to be done on what technology is best suited for the organization’s particular nature of business. (Rafla, 2006)

Cutler, T. R. (2009). Warehouse Management Systems vs. Warehouse Control Systems. Web.

Graham, D.D. (2003), Warehouse of the Future, Frontline Solutions; Duluth;2003.

Rafla, R. (2006). The Analyst Corner: Warehouse Management. Web.

Tompkins, J. A. (1998). The Warehouse management handbook . Tompkins Press.

• Data Warehousing as an Information Management Tool
• Data Warehousing and Its Benefits for Organizations
• E-Warehousing (Logistics & Supply Chain)
• Denver Facility: Supply Chain Management
• Theory of Constraints and Manufacturing Facility
• Valley Manufacturing Co.: Logistics and Production Management
• Using Technology to Improve Supply Chain Management
• Success of Vector Managed Inventory Programs
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2021, November 8). Logistics: Modern Warehousing. https://ivypanda.com/essays/logistics-modern-warehousing/

"Logistics: Modern Warehousing." IvyPanda , 8 Nov. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/logistics-modern-warehousing/.

IvyPanda . (2021) 'Logistics: Modern Warehousing'. 8 November.

IvyPanda . 2021. "Logistics: Modern Warehousing." November 8, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/logistics-modern-warehousing/.

1. IvyPanda . "Logistics: Modern Warehousing." November 8, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/logistics-modern-warehousing/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Logistics: Modern Warehousing." November 8, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/logistics-modern-warehousing/.

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Top five warehouse management problems and how to fix them.

by Newcastle Systems , on Tue, Jul 26, 2016

Warehouse management is commonly associated with six basic tenets: accuracy, cost control, efficiency, cleanliness, safety and security, but the underlying processes are complex and dynamic, presenting major problems for warehouse managers across industries. Distributors have to deal with trade-offs due to resource limitations, leading to under performance in key functional areas.

Warehouse managers face the challenge of maximizing performance while balancing trade-offs under uncertain conditions. This article examines the top five warehouse management problems and their solutions.

Redundant Processes

Traditionally, warehouse employees have been likely to handle a product several times due to the nature of the warehousing process. This tendency lingers on in current practices. A notable redundant process in warehouses is where warehouse workers pass the same ticket through multiple hands.

While necessary in some instances, such redundant procedures are time-consuming and increase the cost of labor. Using barcode technology streamlines the warehousing process, removing redundant processes while maximizing resource utilization. Automated systems are evolving fast, a trend that compels warehouse managers to maintain up-to-date systems to achieve the desired results. 

Poor Facility Layout  

Efficient use of space is a critical success factor in warehousing.  Inadequate storage space and inefficient use of available storage are common problems in warehouses with poor facility layout. Poorly configured warehouses are a major cause for worry for managers because of the inherent potential for negative impacts on profits.

The optimal layout factors both the floor space and the vertical space available for use. In addition to maximizing the use of space, a good layout maximizes the use of equipment and labor, accessibility to all items and the security of all items. Using forklifts that reach the roof of the warehouse allows for a configuration that maximizes both the horizontal and vertical space.

The complementary solution is to ensure that the highest-selling inventory is easily accessible by placing it at the most accessible point.

Seasonality in Demand

Fluctuations in demand pose serious challenges for warehouse managers. The dip in sales due to the recent global financial crisis resulted in major cost problems for warehouses due to increased inventory levels. Although it did not affect all industries alike, the problem highlights the challenge of fluctuations in demand due to forces outside the control of the warehouse.

Managing seasonality in demand requires timely and accurate information about manufacturing, retailing and the industry. Information gaps between the warehouse and other relevant entities or the industry limit the ability of the distributor to monitor and respond to changes in demand effectively. It is necessary for warehouses to use timely and accurate information in planning and forecasting demand as well as in providing supply chain visibility.

Rearranging the products to match changes in demand helps minimize the negative impacts of seasonal demand. Such a rearrangement involves correct positioning of the items by placing the products with high demand during the current season at the front of the picking aisle and at the correct height.

Dealing with seasonality in demand, however, goes beyond just layout and picking. The problem also requires proper management of transportation networks and strategic sourcing of transportation services. These long-term solutions build a lasting capability with strategic value for the distributor.

High Labor Costs

Warehouse managers strive to increase productivity while minimizing labor costs in a labor-intensive environment. Inbound Logistics estimates that labor constitutes about 65% of the operating budgets of most warehouses. A typical warehouse uses expensive equipment and employs a large labor force, presenting a challenge that is for the most part unique to warehousing operations. 

The staff ranges from cleaners and packers to managers and administrative personnel. Attempts to reduce the cost of labor should take into consideration the impacts of the move on other costs. The two major strategies for addressing labor-related problems include maximizing available labor and replacing labor with automated systems.

> Action item: use our ROI calculator to see how you can lower labor costs <

Developing the right mix of expertise through workforce planning helps managers hone the skills necessary for successful labor force practices. A combination of the right skills and motivation, through practices such as excellent working conditions, training and flexible hours, enhances employee productivity and the performance of the warehouse.

Inaccurate Inventory

Accuracy and efficiency in handling inventory in warehousing go hand in hand. Inaccurate inventory causes problems such as maintaining improper stock levels and buildups of obsolete inventory.  Picking problems also arise when pickers rely on inaccurate information, leading to inefficient processes. Other costs of inaccurate stock information include increased expenses, lost revenue and low productivity. Automation is a key factor in solving accuracy-related problems.

Automated systems offer real-time, accurate information about stock levels and composition. The technology employed in managing inventory in a warehouse is critical to success because the value of the automated system is just as good as the quality of the system itself. A low-quality system retains some of the risks associated with inaccurate inventory. A careful and informed selection process reduces the risk of procuring an automation system that does not meet the needs of the warehouse.

Warehouses face increasingly dynamic environments as remote events in the global supply chain become more relevant to local business environments. The desirable approach when dealing with the challenges that arise due to new developments is to use inexpensive solutions that offer sustainable best practices. Warehouse managers should monitor and track changes in the business environment and adopt responsive solutions.

Common warehouse problems such as redundant processes, poor facility layout, seasonality in demand, high labor costs and inaccurate inventory information require robust systems that keep managers informed about changes and gaps that require attention.

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Strategic Warehouse Management, Essay Example

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Introduction

Possessing a reliable warehousing and distribution strategy is crucial for an organization’s success in today’s global environment (Ackerman, 2007). Strategic warehouse management, Inc. company seeks to design, develop, manage, and implement a preliminary plan for a non-resident company. The company has identified marketing opportunities in Australia; consequently, the company needs to exploit the new market through the non-resident company. This paper explores the logistic needs of establishing a non-resident company before the commencement of operations. The paper explores management issues related with setting up of new warehouses (Inmon, Strauss, & Neushloss, 2008)

The paper provides a preliminary development plan which entails submitting warehouse operations in any city situated in Australia. The report also strives to explore key strategic warehouse management implications like design of the management structure of the warehouse, workforce implications, analyze fundamental regulations and other management implications, amongst other strategic warehouse management issues.

Supply chain

Ackerman (2007) argues that strategic warehouse management present practices aimed at maintaining a healthy inventory level as well as lowering logistics costs. Strategic warehouse management presents a management tool designed to protect an organization against conventional changes in warehouse requirements. Strategic warehouse management commences with an effective supply chain design (Ackerman, 2007). A supply chain refers to a network established amongst distinct companies producing, managing, and/ or distributing a specific product. This report is interested in presenting the steps required to get a service or good from the supplier to the customers (from USA to Australia and vice versa). Supply chains are a crucial strategy for many organizations, as such, this report strives to design the most optimized supply chain with the aim of managing operational costs. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Strategic Warehouse Management, Inc. (SWM) is determined to extend their operations in Australia. The company’s marketing team has identified untapped marketing opportunities in Australia and seeks to maximize on the opportunity (Inmon, Strauss, & Neushloss, 2008)

The proposed new branch is a non-resident Company and can be opened in any city in Australia. The new business will offer warehouse services for a variety of businesses situated in Australia. Firstly, this report proposes that any organization or dealers interested in contacting the services of Strategic Warehouse Management, Inc. should be incorporated into the supply chain (Ackerman, 2007). The supply chain should be deployed in ways that augment shareholder value and profitability. The marketing team of Strategic Marketing, Inc. should consider sourcing techniques result to the best financial performance. The preliminary plan should specify the optimal number of plants, distribution centers, and available warehouses to maximize long-term gains (Prabhu, 2011).

Warehouse Design Requirements

Prabhu (2011) continues by stating that data warehousing is one of the powerful tools available to sustain a business enterprise. In present day most of businesses employ warehouse based programs in the designing and executing of data in warehouse database. The process of designing a good warehouse is exhaustive and detail laden. A good design process is one that focuses on location and design. An ample preliminary warehouse design should be managed and sustained by specialized individuals who are also team members. Selecting a location presents the initial step of designing a warehouse. The selection process should realize that the facility’s location performs the function of getting a company close to its clients (Prabhu, 2011). The main performance issue for a warehouse is lead time. This is because the society is marred by high levels of impatience, as such; warehouses should strive to eliminate delay constraints. Strategic Warehouse Management, Inc. should decide whether they require that the non-resident company should be a stand-alone warehouse to cater for nationwide demands. Alternatively, the organization should also consider whether the non-resident company will complement an existing association with another facility or an alternative for another facility (Prabhu, 2011).

Hawkins and Humphries (2009) suggest that the course of designing the warehouse, Strategic Warehouse Management should understand the culture and preferences of Australia clients. Moreover, the multiple enterprise implications call for an extended research into the nature and form of each business that require the warehouse service. A crucial consideration is whether the clients require high availability needs or short lead times. The distance of the warehouse to the clients is also an essential consideration, as it determines consumer choice (Ackerman, 2007).

Organization Structure

Before implementing a warehouse design, it is crucial to define the structure of the warehouse and depict it in the management system for successful establishment. The initial step involves definition of individual warehouses, for instance high rank storage, picking area, block storage, and sundry (Prabhu, 2011). Classification of the various storage types is important, as well as grouping. The warehouse number is essential as it helps define various storage locations for a particular plant.

An organization structure illustrates the scope of business operations performance measurements. It also offers the platform for measuring, analyzing, and controlling activities in a warehouse. The operations in a warehouse entail receiving input from suppliers and extending the same to its clients. As such achieving excellence in a warehouse is an ongoing process and is achieved through continuous improvements (Ackerman, 2007). Management implications in a warehouse should be concerned with inventory accuracy, productivity, storage occupancy, and customer service.

Workforce management

Superior service is often the distinguishing element in market growth and customer retention. The business venture that has opened up for Strategic Warehouse Management, Inc. is complex as it involves numerous business enterprises. Consequently the warehouse in question ought to be extremely huge and requires a big workforce. The complexity of the nature of business service required also calls for high specialization and division of labor with respect to the workforce. The employees contracted should be competitive enough to contribute effectively and efficiently to the organization’s financial and service goals. The organizations’ executive should also aim at developing a workforce that undertakes performance reporting and optimize labor planning with the aim of driving revenues higher.

Mobility is another critical consideration for workforce requirements while constructing a warehouse design. Designing a convenient solution for the workforce can be a daunting task. A portable workforce has the right experience and sufficient knowledge on the industry. Moreover, management of the workforce should be swift and efficient and should aim at reducing workloads and employee inefficiencies (Ackerman, 2007).

A non-resident company implies that Strategic Warehouse Management, Inc. Company seeks to maintain the control of the warehouse (located in Australia) in the United States. As such, the company should develop strategic plans aimed at promoting efficiency in collaborative ventures with the entire supply chain of the company based in Australia. The company should also strive to ensure that their Australian clients; with interests in exploring the United States markets, are assisted in their quest. The company can achieve this through maintaining a constant supply chain cost, and offering their clients an analytic paradigm for the improvement and success of their ventures (Ackerman, 2007). The company should develop a strategy that will sustain efficiency in operations and see to it that products get to the distributors and customers at a minimal cost. Strategic warehousing should strive to offer their Australian clients a business foundation for their stock and inventory so that they, in part, focus on sales and marketing.

Import procedures

The United States import and export procedures are stringent but business friendly. Import and export rules and regulations are designed to protect consumers against exploitation and harmful products. Under the provisions of the United States law included in the United States Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, importers of various products are obligated to ensure that the products are sanitary, safe, and labeled with respect to United States requirements.

Products imported into the United States; especially, food substances, are considered to be interstate commerce. However food importers are highly advised that Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is not authorized by law to approve, license, certify, or otherwise sanction single food importers. The importers are allowed to import food substances into the United States without prior consent by Food and Drug Administration. This holds as long as the facilities, which produce, store, or handle food products are registered with the body. A prior indication of incoming shipment is offered to Food and Drug Administration.

Australian Imports

Companies and individuals with interests in bringing their goods and services into the United States for sale should employ the services of Strategic Warehouse Management, Inc. Company. The company specializes in the construction, as well as the integration of all functions and services across the supply chain. In addition, the physical location of the company will aid in monitoring clients’ products across the United States market. The company will also assist the Australian import class acquire worldwide logistics for novel solutions that aid in planning business strategies, accelerate order times, enhance customer service, as well as tighten the control of the supply chain .

This report established that all importers are required to adhere to United States import procedures and the requirements of Prior Notice. Companies shipping products to the United States, at some instances, may find their shipments subject to “Detention Without Physical Examination” by United States import authorities. Importers are strongly advised to maintain their patience as the products are held at the port of entry. This gives import authorities ample time to carry out additional scrutiny, analysis, and testing. The delays arising from detention without physical scrutiny could be lengthy to businesses suffering the loss of time. Furthermore, the delays could lead to poor delivery schedules. In such instances, importers are strongly advised to always seek assistance from import authorities to prevent further loss of business opportunities.

Export Implications

Exporters from the United States should contact the customs and Border Protection Organization (CBP). The body addresses all export concerns of business people and offer export guidance. Export rules vary with country of trade (Prabhu, 2011). For instance, there is no general licensing for exporting to the United Kingdom or some European Union countries. Exported food products should; however, bear general requirements which include special invoice declarations, special labeling requirements, and Certificate of Origin. The Certificate of Origin is mostly required for products containing animal byproducts.

Supply Chain Risks

Risks are a fraction of life and are evident in every business activity. Warehouse owners indulge in risks because of the potential reward associated with the risky venture. Most of the decisions in supply chain management are highly risky (Hawkins and Humphries, 2009). Nevertheless, strategic warehouse management companies always strive to ensure that they adopt effective strategies meant to prevent, reduce, or even eliminate the risk. Uncontrolled risk can be detrimental to the success of the supply chain of Strategic Warehouse management, Inc. company. Supply chain risk management is about identifying risks and mitigating operations against natural disasters and other events.

Some of the major risks associated with supply chain management include routine fluctuations in demand and supply (Hawkins and Humphries, 2009). In addition, mishandling daily fluctuations could present severe implications to the warehouse as the changes accumulate (Prabhu, 2011). Consequently, the phenomenon could result to obsolete and excess inventory, as well as poor customer service if fluctuations are not professionally managed. Other risk implications include rapid growth of the inventory, counterfeit and contaminated goods, changes to IT systems, and changes to the supplier base.

Possible Mitigation

The initial step in mitigating risks to chain supplies is the determination of the most hazardous risks to the business. This report recommends that Strategic Warehouse Management should, in their risk mitigation exercise, identify their most reliable suppliers, as well as major clients. This exercise ensures that the most lucrative revenue source is identified for possible risk mitigation procedures (Hawkins and Humphries, 2009). After prioritization of the supply base with respect to revenue contribution, risk elements which apply to every supplier should be analyzed. The order of assessment should reflect the importance in terms of revenue contribution to the warehouse.

Strategic Warehouse Management, Inc. should outsource the services of actuaries for possible risk identification and mitigation exercises (Hawkins and Humphries, 2009). The company should consult the services of actuarial scientists to help them manage possible risk scenarios likely to be encountered by the non-resident company in Australia. The research experts will help the company handle supply chain risks which come in many forms. The research experts will mostly come in handy in helping the company deal with external risk factors like regulatory, political, environmental, and others. The initial stages of a venture are crucial as they determine future growth and development implications of the venture. Contracting actuaries situated in Australia will work a great deal in putting up a successful start for Strategic Warehouse Management, Inc.

Direct Management

As time moves on, risk factors will change, as well as mitigation strategies. As such, the management of Strategic Warehouse Management, Inc. should align themselves to the recommendations forwarded by the Australian actuaries (Hawkins and Humphries, 2009). An Australian actuarial firm is highly recommended as the firm is located in SWM’s domain of interest. The management of the firm should maintain the strategic plan developed during the initial stages of the non-resident company. The management should strive to manage the warehouse alongside the organization’s principles. A transformational leadership is prerequisite to establish a good organizational culture for the company. Adhering to import, export, and non-resident company rules and regulations should form top priority in the organization’s agenda.

Budget Line Items

Budget line items that need to be considered in Strategic Warehouse Management’s preliminary plan include fixed and variable cost items (Hawkins and Humphries, 2009). Most of the items in the budget line represent operational tools designed to enhance the efficiency of the warehouse. These include salaries of employees, benefits, taxes, and allowances, expenses for space and utilities (rent), communication and postage expenses, consultant/ contractual expenses, and sundry.

This report recommends that the sales levels attained and the trends in inventory should form as the basis for measuring the success of the non-resident company in Australia. An effective warehouse is determined by the flow of goods in and out of the warehouse during operations (Prabhu, 2011). The magnitude of operations per given time should be determined, for consecutive periods. The general trend in the operations (sales and inventory) should be used to dictate the success of the non-resident warehouse located in Australia.

Hawkins and Humphries (2009) recommend that Australian business people should set an effective collaborative venture with Strategic Warehouse Management, Inc. Company. Collaboration will help them realize high sales volume in the United States market, as well as cement their economic influence in the region (Prabhu, 2011). On the other hand, Strategic Warehouse Management Company should adhere to tax and registration requirements of Australia for a successful take-off (Prabhu, 2011).

The company will facilitate the order of supplies across the supply chain, thereby facilitating the development of Australian brands in the United States.

Prabhu, S., & Venkatecan, N. (2007). Data mining and warehousing . New Delhi: New Age International (P) Ltd., Publishers.

Ackerman, K. B. (2007). Practical Handbook of Warehousing . Boston: Kluwer.

Prabhu, C. S. R. (2011). Data warehousing: Concepts, techniques, products and applications . New Delhi: PHI Learning.

Inmon, W. H., Strauss, D., & Neushloss, G. (2008). DW 2.0: The Architecture for the Next Generation of Data Warehousing . Burlington: Elsevier. Data Warehousing Fundamentals for It Professionals . (2011). S.l.: John Wiley & Sons.

Humphries, M., & Hawkins M. C. (2009). Data warehousing: Architecture and implementation . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall PTR.

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5 Common Warehouse Management Challenges and their Solutions

by Tim Floyd | Sep 21, 2020 | Lean Solutions , Website Blog

Warehouse management challenges aren’t new, but with increasing consumer demand for e-commerce orders and accelerated shipment scheduling, they certainly feel more pressing these days. If you’re experiencing warehouse management challenges that you know are holding back your facility’s profitability, know that there are solutions available to you. Here’s a look at 5 of the most common warehouse management challenges and their solutions:

Warehouse Management Challenge #1: Lack of Space

In any warehouse, space is a challenge. From accommodating inventory to ensuring there is plenty of space for staff to pick, sort, and assemble, you’re only working with so much square footage. When you’re constantly receiving and accumulating stock, it can be difficult to establish an effective warehouse management system. 

The solution: A well-managed warehouse starts with proper organization and storage. 

It’s difficult to address any of the following challenges if you don’t first have an organized home and process for every product you manage. 

The first step is to maximize the space you do have. Are you effectively using vertical space? Could you be storing and presenting materials more efficiently? Take a look at your warehouse, and how each product flows through the space. Do you notice inefficiencies? Sometimes, a solution as simple as implementing flow racks and re-organizing SKUs can open up a great deal of space. 

Your smaller, high running materials present the greatest opportunity for a big and immediate impact with very minimal investment. Check out this article to see how a simple pallet racking adjustment helped one client achieve 170 additional pick faces, supporting new production while avoiding a costly warehouse expansion. 

Warehouse Management Challenge #2: Inventory Accuracy and Tracking

When it comes to warehouse management, keeping a close, accurate eye on all of the products in your warehouse is a challenging but necessary task. One of the greatest inefficiencies a poorly managed warehouse can introduce is faulty inventory accuracy and tracking. If you don’t know how much you have of a product, how long you have had it, or where it is located, filling and packing orders is increasingly inefficient. 

The solution: Have a plan for every part or product. 

Known in the lean manufacturing world as PFEP or Plan for Every Part, this system is most often used in manufacturing facilities, but is equally as useful in solving warehouse management challenges, especially when it comes to inventory. 

There is plenty of technical information on setting up a PFEP procedure if you’re looking for a how-to-guide. In short, it is very difficult to plan or improve a process you cannot see. The best thing you can do to get started is to take the time to consider each product’s life cycle as it flows into and out of your warehouse. 

Where does each product come from? Where is the best place to store each product? How long will you have it in inventory? Will you perform any value-add service to that product while you have it? How can you start storing and stocking those products more intuitively? 

Start small, and be sure to support your efforts with the solutions that work with you. Modular flow racks, packing stations, and picking carts can help you get those products exactly where they need to go while providing the flexibility you need to shift and adapt as you learn better how to store and keep track of your inventory. 

Warehouse Management Challenge #3: Product Picking and Order Processing Inefficiencies

Product picking and order processing inefficiencies are an increasing challenge for warehouse management. Especially as e-commerce orders continue to soar, warehouses across the country are adapting to picking smaller orders on shorter return times. If you can optimize the product picking process, you stand to increase profitability by boosting the number of orders your warehouse can pick and ship in a shift or day. 

The Solution: Consider “First In, First Out” or FIFO with Flow Racks

Especially for applications where products have a shelf life or expiration date, it’s essential to pick the oldest products in the warehouse first. 

There is a range of lean solutions that can help support FIFO. From picking carts to organized flow racks, there are many tools you can implement in your warehouse to deliver products to pickers in a way that supports FIFO throughout your warehouse. Don’t address material flow in a single aspect. Where material comes from, where it needs to go, and the method of fulfilling this process are all aspects to consider as a material flow system.

Custom workstations are another ideal warehouse solution . Packaging and repackaging for order processing is a drain on profitability. When everything your operators need is within arms reach, and their workstations are organized according to their specific needs, you can improve process time and save space. 

Warehouse Management Challenge #4: Product Handling Damages 

When items are damaged or broken in the warehouse, those damages come right out of your facility’s bottom line. While some level of product handling damage is expected, minimizing it can go a long way to improve your facility’s returns. And minimizing product handling damages, for most applications, can be easier than you think. 

The solution: Organization, proper storage, and material handling solutions that reduce damage. 

The first step in minimizing product handling damages is to reduce product handling. This may seem elementary, but take the time to walk through the process (remember PFEP from earlier?) for each part, and see how many times it is touched while you own it, then look for opportunities to reduce handling. Then it is time to get organized. A poorly organized warehouse often means overloading shelves and racks, which can lead to significant damages. 

Another solution is phasing out forklifts , which can cause a significant amount of damage when they are used improperly, or when pallets start to crack or break. By implementing better material delivery systems, like custom delivery carts made for the warehouse , which minimize product overhandling and repackaging, you reduce the potential for product damage. 

Warehouse Management Challenge #5: Managing Fluctuations in Demand

In a recent market survey, changes in consumer demand were shown to be the biggest warehouse management challenge, primarily because it’s not a challenge you can predict or control. Changes in demand due to a shifting economy, extreme weather, and even seasonality of a product can change what your warehouse looks like in an instant. When consumer demand is constantly in flux, how can you adapt in a way that maintains your warehouse’s profitability? 

The Solution: Lean material flow solutions that scale as your processes do. 

If there’s one thing you know for sure about warehouse management, it’s that there are ebbs and flows to the demand for your products. The best solution to this common, but often difficult-to-solve warehouse management challenge is to invest in flexible lean material flow solutions that can adapt as quickly as demand increases or wanes. 

One ideal solution for warehouses is customizable material handling carts . These modular, convertible material handling solutions are easily assembled and reassembled to suit any product or part in your warehouse. If implementing a new cart program, now is the time to standardize your cart platform, and use what we call a “Top Hat” system that can adapt quickly to a variety of changing needs.

You can apply the same methodology to any support component in your warehouse, from workstations to flow racks and even material delivery carts. When all of these solutions are designed upfront for flexibility — built from tube and joint assembly that is easy to break down or build up — reconfiguring your warehouse to suit changing consumer demand is simple. 

While warehouse management challenges can feel overwhelming, and at times, insurmountable, it’s important to know that there are solutions. By taking a close look at how your warehouse operates, and by tackling small projects one at a time, you can address each of these warehouse management challenges to develop a new and improved warehouse that is streamlined, efficient, and profitable. For more information on any of the solutions to warehouse management challenges mentioned in this blog, contact the team at Geolean USA . We’re happy to answer any questions you have.

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Storage Location Assignment Problem in a Warehouse: A Literature Review

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• Lucy Medrano-Zarazúa 7 ,
• Jania Astrid Saucedo-Martínez 7 &
• Johanna Bolaños-Zuñiga 7  

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Warehouse management is one of the many companies’ operations that is a main part of the supply chain. Storage takes up between 2 and 5% of the total cost of sales in an organization (Hwang and Cho (Comput Ind Eng 51(2):335–342, 2006)). The storage allocation of products is an activity inside the warehouses that help managing a good flow of the products. It is a complex issue since it depends on many parameters such as the number of spaces, the quantity of products, and the number of rack levels that are in the warehouse, and the resources to move, among other things. When optimizing the flow of operations in the warehouse, good decisions have to be made, and, in this work, through a systematic literature review, different academic papers published between 2005 and 2021 on the SLAP are analyzed and classified according to the solution methodology, objectives, and other characteristics, so that the most used methods in the literature are obtained for this type of problem as well as the parameters that are most taken into account to solve it.

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Medrano-Zarazúa, L., Saucedo-Martínez, J.A., Bolaños-Zuñiga, J. (2024). Storage Location Assignment Problem in a Warehouse: A Literature Review. In: Marmolejo-Saucedo, J.A., Rodríguez-Aguilar, R., Vasant, P., Litvinchev, I., Retana-Blanco, B.M. (eds) Computer Science and Engineering in Health Services. COMPSE 2022. EAI/Springer Innovations in Communication and Computing. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-34750-4_2

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California fines Amazon nearly $6M, alleging illegal work quotas at 2 warehouses

FILE - People leave the entrance to the Amazon San Bernardino Fulfillment Center, October 29, 2013 in San Bernardino, Calif. California has hit Amazon with two separate fines totaling $5.9 million, alleging the e-commerce giant violated a law designed to protect warehouse employees from requirements that they work so quickly that it risks their safety, officials said Tuesday, June 18, 2024. (AP Photo/David McNew, File)

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — California has fined Amazon a total of $5.9 million, alleging the e-commerce giant worked warehouse employees so hard that it put their safety at risk, officials said Tuesday.

The two citations issued in May by the California Labor Commissioner’s Office said Amazon.com Services LLC ran afoul of the state’s Warehouse Quota Law at facilities in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, east of Los Angeles.

The law, which took effect in 2022, “requires warehouse employers to provide employees written notice of any quotas they must follow, including the number of tasks they need to perform per hour and any discipline that could come” from not meeting the requirements, the labor commissioner’s office said in a statement.

Amazon was fined $1.2 million at a warehouse in Redlands and $4.7 million at another in nearby Moreno Valley.

The company said Tuesday that it disagrees with the allegations and has appealed the citations.

“The truth is, we don’t have fixed quotas. At Amazon, individual performance is evaluated over a long period of time, in relation to how the entire site’s team is performing,” company spokesperson Maureen Lynch Vogel said in a statement. “Employees can — and are encouraged to — review their performance whenever they wish. They can always talk to a manager if they’re having trouble finding the information.”

The citations allege that Amazon failed to provide written notice of quotas.

Labor Commissioner Lilia García-Brower said Amazon engaged in “exactly the kind of system” that the quotas law was put in place to prevent.

“Undisclosed quotas expose workers to increased pressure to work faster and can lead to higher injury rates and other violations by forcing workers to skip breaks,” she said in a statement.

The agency began investigating in 2022 after employees at the two Southern California facilities reported that they were subject to unfair quota practices, said the Warehouse Worker Resource Center, a nonprofit that advocates for improving working conditions.

Similar legislation has been enacted in Minnesota, New York, Oregon and Washington, the resource center said. In May, U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, introduced a federal version of the warehouse worker protection act in Congress.

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Te Haoroa Programme: Ministry of Social Development Data Warehouse Replacement Report Back

17 June 2024.

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It’s Mourning in America

By Cody Delistraty

In my childhood home, a modest, low-slung rectangle in eastern Washington, my mother was a bedroom away from me when she experienced her last moment. I remember standing in front of her, just after, feeling that I was watching a show or a movie, that this up-close experience was somehow false.

I had never seen death in person before. I had, however, seen it frequently on my phone’s screen, on my laptop, on TV, in movie theatres. So what was I looking at here? At my mother’s bedside, having never had the chance to confront serious loss in any substantive way, I was without comparison. In the following weeks, I struggled to accord what I’d seen with the world beyond our home. Looking around, it sometimes seemed loss and grief hardly existed at all.

Today, in the U.S. and the U.K., death is largely banished from the visual landscape. A century ago, approximately eighty-five per cent of Brits died at home; these days, it’s closer to twenty-five per cent, and around thirty per cent in America. Many of those deaths have moved to the hospital, an often sterile environment where, as during the pandemic, loved ones are sometimes restricted from visiting. When individual bodies show up in newspapers, magazines, and social media, they tend to be exoticized, people not like us . When they are familiar, they have “their faces turned away,” as Susan Sontag wrote ; their identity is eroded, reduced, until they are more concept than person. We see this form of not quite death so often that one can be forgiven for mistaking, as I did, the curated depiction for the actual event.

And then there is the stigma of grief—the idea, now rampant in American life, of closure. Most people are loath to linger in loss. We are expected to get back to work, back to normal. According to a recent survey, U.S. companies offer, on average, five days of bereavement leave, a remarkably brief amount of time to grapple with a death. (For the death of a “close friend/chosen family,” the number drops to a single day.) Typical mourning rites can seem to take closure to an extreme: at a funeral, loved ones may surround and console you for an afternoon, but we have few widespread customs that continue in the aftermath. This is in stark contrast to practices elsewhere—the Day of the Dead in Mexico; the Japanese Buddhist festival of Obon, which honors ancestral spirits—that prepare grievers to carry a loss for their entire lives.

In America, the appeal of closure may be traced to “ On Death and Dying ,” the 1969 best-seller, by the Swiss-American psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, that outlined the “five stages” of grief, ending with acceptance. Kübler-Ross has been widely misread by the public: her original research was on how people coped with the prospect of their own death, not with the loss of another. As the social scientist Pauline Boss has pointed out, closure is a construct, something that can never fully be attained; even if we grieve in stages, there is no prescription for how to grieve, much less for how to neatly overcome a loss. Boss suggests that closure’s popularity is a product of America’s “mastery-oriented culture,” in which “we believe in fixing things, finding cures.” With my own grief, too, I imagined a solution. I wanted to mourn quietly, persistently, toward a goal, until the pain, even the death itself, was nearly forgotten.

Loss wasn’t always obscured or seen as a trial to overcome. Throughout the eighteenth century, in much of Western Europe, death was witnessed directly and with little fanfare, according to the French historian Philippe Ariès. Ariès was well known for “ Western Attitudes Toward Death: From the Middle Ages to the Present ,” his 1974 history of how the social construction of death changed over time. Observing an era in which mortality rates were much higher, he identified four distinguishing characteristics. The dying person was typically in his own bed. He usually had some awareness of his situation; he “presided over it and knew its protocol.” His family, sometimes even his neighbors, would join him at his bedside. And, while he was dying, emotions were relatively measured, the death being expected, to some degree already mourned, and broadly understood as part of the flow of time.

Although Ariès has been criticized, sometimes fairly, for an overreliance on literary sources and an idealization of the past, his core conclusion holds true: there was a social regularity—and nearness—to death that’s largely foreign to many today. (Ariès used the term “tamed death,” nodding to how mortality was at the forefront of public consciousness.) Even the trappings of mourning evinced this openness. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, grieving women generally wore heavy black outfits that included veils and bonnets; sometimes there were necklaces, or bits of jewelry that contained the hair of the deceased. Both male and female mourners often used special stationery with black borders for correspondence. (Over time, the borders would narrow, to show readers that the bereaved party was slowly recovering.) And “death portraits,” although creepy to contemporary eyes, were popular memorials, further elevating death’s presence in the cultural psyche.

In the nineteen-hundreds, though, our relationship to grief seemed to change, transforming from a public, integrated phenomenon to a personal and repressed one. Some of this may have been prompted by the First and Second World Wars, which resulted in such multitudes of dead—men whose bodies were often unrecoverable—that the old rituals were no longer tenable. Other reasons were political, serving the needs of power. During the First World War, for instance, American suffragists marched against the prospect of U.S. involvement, noting the immense loss of life and the struggle it would create for women left alone at home or widowed. The protest’s goal, per one suffragette, was to stretch “out hands of sympathy across the sea to the women and children who suffer and to the men who are forced into the ranks to die.” In the heat of August, 1914, women paraded through Manhattan in traditional black mourning clothes.

President Woodrow Wilson had run on an isolationist platform, but by 1917 the United States had joined the fray, and such demonstrations threatened his agenda. In 1918, conscious of the public’s perception of the war, he wrote to Anna Howard Shaw, the former president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, asking that the suffragettes encourage women across the country to reframe their mourning as patriotism. Instead of mourning clothes, he suggested, women could wear badges bearing white stars, which “upon the occurrence of a death be changed into stars of gold.” At the time, the Nineteenth Amendment was in the balance, and Shaw, who understood the importance of Wilson’s support, obliged, asking her followers to dial back their public grief and change their dress. “Instead of giving away to depression, it is our duty to display the same courage and spirit that they do,” she said. “If they can die nobly, we must show that we can live nobly.” On July 7, 1918, the Times ran an article entitled “Insignia, Not Black Gowns, as War Mourning: Women of America Asked to Forego Gloomy Evidences of Grief.” (The article was pinned between two stories about the terrors of the war: “Mustard Gas Warfare” and “Need of Still Larger Armies.”) The Nineteenth Amendment passed the next year, with Wilson’s endorsement.

Across the Atlantic, Freud was rethinking mourning as a private pursuit. Perhaps grief was actually a form of “work,” he wrote in “Mourning and Melancholia”—and only upon that work’s completion could the ego become “free and uninhibited again.” Death continued to recede from the public square: Walter Benjamin, in his 1936 essay “ The Storyteller ,” notes how it had been relegated to the corridors of the hospital, where the ill and dying were “stowed away.” Silence, individualism, and stoicism became valorized, and talk of death and grief no longer belonged in daily interactions. “Should they speak of the loss, or no?” the anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer wondered in his 1965 book “Death, Grief, and Mourning in Contemporary Britain.” “Will the mourner welcome expressions of sympathy, or prefer a pretence that nothing has really happened?” In his book, which drew from a survey of about sixteen hundred British citizens, Gorer suggested that people who chose pretense were less likely to sleep well and have strong social connections.

Gorer, like Ariès, attributed this shift to “the pursuit of happiness” having been “turned into an obligation”: the challenging aspects of life were now framed as individual burdens, rather than shared setbacks. The quest for happiness has long been baked into the American psyche, but one can see its distortion in quasi-therapeutic concepts such as “putting yourself first” and “emotional bandwidth”—the notion that an uncomfortable emotion is an undesirable one, and that we should set firm limits on certain discussions of hardship, even with intimate friends. Add to that “self-care”—arguably the greatest marketing success of the twenty-first century, in which consumption is repackaged as a path toward well-being—and Ariès’s claim that we live in the era of “forbidden death” continues to resonate. “The choking back of sorrow, the forbidding of its public manifestation, the obligation to suffer alone and secretly, has aggravated the trauma stemming from the loss of a dear one,” Ariès wrote, citing Gorer. “A single person is missing for you, and the whole world is empty. But one no longer has the right to say so aloud.”

After my mother’s memorial, after we scattered her ashes, I decided to run a marathon. I was still looking for proxies for grief, situations where an external accomplishment could solve my inner turmoil. Needless to say, it didn’t work. Not the running, not the hiking, not the strength-training regimen. Grief was a different beast, one that couldn’t be overcome through will power alone.

The historian Michel Vovelle challenged Ariès’s idea that “forbidden death” defined the West’s attitude toward loss, or that death had even become taboo by the mid-twentieth century. Vovelle believed that the historian’s job wasn’t merely to look at shifts in the past. “Why not look for these turning points in the present?” he wrote. Indeed, to look at the current moment is to see an unusual evolution, in which grief’s privatization has given way to the blossoming of a new hybrid form.

On social media, one often finds public grief that’s rooted in private interests. When a statesman or a celebrity passes away, or when videos of a distant tragedy circulate, expressions of mourning can sometimes seem to be a mix of sincerity and performance, an opportunity less to confront death than to strategically display one’s sympathies. Corporations issue statements of solidarity which are, at bottom, advertisements. (After the Boston Marathon bombing, the food site Epicurious tweeted, “In honor of Boston and New England, may we suggest: whole-grain cranberry scones!”) Crystal Abidin, an ethnographer of Internet culture, calls this phenomenon “publicity grieving”; it returns grief to the public square, but in strange, vaguely unnerving forms. When millennials began taking “funeral selfies” around 2013, the trend sparked a minor media frenzy, eliciting think pieces and advice articles, including one from a casket-making company.

The exploitative aspect of publicity grieving is obvious. Still, it’s notable that collective mourning is once again part of the texture of daily life. The sociologist Margaret Gibson is clear-eyed about the turn—death mediated by the Internet, she notes, is not the same as death being intimately known and accepted—but she also recognizes the ways in which grief has been normalized, its effects allowed to emerge once more in social interaction. One of her studies focussed on YouTube bereavement vlogs—videos, posted by young people in the days and months after they’d lost a parent, in which they forge apparently genuine bonds with the strangers watching, sharing their pain and showing how “mourning continues across a lifetime.” Elsewhere, initiatives such as The Dinner Party, a predominately online meetup for people who have experienced a variety of losses, provide a kind of “second space” for grief, somewhere between “normal” life and the formalized privacy of a therapist’s office. Even the funeral-selfie-takers seem—to me, at least—to possess motives more benevolent than voyeuristic self-promotion. Perhaps they wanted to share their sense of loss, but were unsure how to do so, in person, without feeling like they were an encumbrance. A frivolous form of photography may not seem commensurate with the gravity of death, but approaching the subject with some amount of levity and candor may be precisely what we need.

A decade on, I’m still figuring out my own grief. After completing the Paris Marathon, soon after my mom died, I didn’t run for several years. Lately, I’ve taken it up again, cutting curling circles through the park near my home. The point I’ve begun to look forward to is no longer the finish line, but the moment when I begin to hit a psychic and physiological wall. In the past, I might have stopped, gone home, downed some Gatorade. It was painful. Now I’ve found some satisfaction in the unease, in living within the feeling rather than blasting past it. I see that my feet continue to move, that my breath persists. Sometimes it overwhelms me, but then I look up and see, all around the park, others running, just as winded as I am, experiencing something of the same. ♦

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Saudi Arabia’s Thoroughly Iconic, Unsustainable City in the Desert

By Philip Oldfield

Dr. Oldfield is the head of the School of the Built Environment at the University of New South Wales in Australia.

It may not feel like it, but we’re likely experiencing the largest construction booms in history. According to one estimate , the world will build the equivalent of a New York City every month from 2020 to 2060.

Even this may not be enough to meet the growing demand for housing. The United Nations estimates 96,000 affordable units should be built a day to house the three billion people who will need them by 2030.

Many countries facing explosive population growth are creating entirely new cities that combine environmental ambition with striking architecture. Egypt is constructing a capital east of Cairo for 6.5 million residents featuring Africa’s tallest skyscraper. To take the pressure off Greater Jakarta’s 30 million residents squeezed by rising seas, Indonesia is building a new capital on the island of Borneo .

Perhaps most famous of all is Saudi Arabia’s NEOM, which includes a mountain ski resort, a floating logistics hub and a city known as “the Line” with two parallel skyscrapers connected by walkways that will stretch across a desert and mountains. Though the government recently scaled back the first phase of construction, it has allocated billions of dollars for the project, which could one day house some nine million people. The ultimate statement of ambition, wealth and technological advancement, the city is planned to be about 655 feet wide, 1,640 feet high and some 106 miles long — a distance about eight times the length of Manhattan Island.

The Line offers a hedonistic vision of city living. In renderings, families picnic on sky bridges above canyon-esque atria. Lush greenery cascades from skyscrapers stretching out to the horizon as far as the eye can see. And the project promises a version of urban sustainability most cities can only dream of: no roads, cars or greenhouse gas emissions from transport or electricity.

But the Line, for all its chutzpah, should not be our model for sustainable city living. There are far better ways to build, informed by everything we already know about materials and design. The cities of the future should experiment with architecture, but in service of making spaces more livable and sustainable, not simply iconic.

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In Defense of the Devil’s Advocate

M y heart was beating out of my chest, and I was breaking into a cold sweat. You’d expect nerves from a Ph.D. student presenting at a conference full of professors, but I’d just finished my talk. I’d practiced that presentation dozens of times and never quite nailed it. Yet gameday had come, and I’d hit every note. So why the jitters?

As I took my seat, Patrick Bolton stood up. He was one of the world’s most respected researchers in corporate finance theory, the topic I’d just spoken about, and would later become president of the American Finance Association, the most prestigious position in my profession. Patrick wasn’t presenting one of his own papers but instead was assigned the role of “discussant”—to read my paper beforehand and give an independent view.

The discussion started well enough, with Bolton calling my idea “intuitively plausible,” but then he said a key ingredient in my study “makes no sense.” I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. I’d been thrilled to be invited to this conference, where I was the only student in a room full of professors. But now they’d be going back home and telling their colleagues about this young upstart who gate-crashed an event for seasoned faculty and presented nonsense.

Bolton then moved on to discussing the next paper in the session, but I was so upset I tuned it out. This research was by a senior professor, so Bolton would surely be full of praise, making mine seem even more flawed by comparison. I was suddenly shaken out of my slumber when Patrick said that this study might have an “endogeneity problem.” That’s a major blow to any scientific study. It means that you have correlation, but no causation.

That was the first morning of the week-long conference. Virtually every other discussion followed a similar tone to Bolton’s. It started off commending the question the researchers were exploring but then explained why they hadn’t yet fully nailed the answer due to alternative explanations or other quibbles. Over that week, I realized that constructive criticism is simply part of the academic process. The whole point of presenting at a conference is that you can only take an idea so far by yourself. There’s no stigma in receiving negative comments—they’re simply expected. If a discussant were ever entirely positive, it would have so little credibility that the audience would think you had incriminating photos of him.

The value of this practice applies far beyond academia. While most people understand the power of the scientific method, this is about the “scientific culture”—an environment where people put out bold and innovative ideas, actively seek dissenting opinions and revise their proposals to address the criticisms—which is valuable to any organization. If it’s part of the fabric for plans to be critiqued, then there’s no shame in receiving pushback. Nor is there fear in raising concerns—doing so helps colleagues refine their ideas, rather than stabbing them in the back. Highlighting flaws isn’t unkind; instead, one of the most unkind things you can do is to notice a problem and not point it out.

Read more: How to Disagree With Your Boss and Still Get Ahead

The non-academic equivalent of a discussant is a “devil’s advocate,” who highlights the blind spots in a proposal. Sometimes, an entire group is tasked with this job, known as a “red team.” This was practiced by ExComm, the committee set up by John F. Kennedy to indicate how to respond to the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was divided into two teams, one supporting an invasion and the other a blockade. After the two sides wrote their initial papers, they exchanged them and gave feedback on the other’s proposal. The initial group then revised their plan to take into account the concerns.

Sometimes you don’t need to appoint a red team; the culture is such that one naturally emerges. When he ran General Motors, Alfred Sloan closed a meeting by asking “I take it we are all in complete agreement on the decision here?” Everyone nodded. Sloan continued, “Then, I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until our next meeting to give ourselves time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain some understanding of what this decision is about.” He believed that no decision is black and white, and if no one raised any concerns, this wasn’t because there weren’t any but because he hadn’t yet given his colleagues time to think of them.

Devil’s advocates can even be automated. Singaporean bank DBS brings a Wreckoon, a racoon-themed mascot wielding a hammer, into every major meeting . At random times, a PowerPoint slide appears with the Wreckoon, accompanied by a question such as “What have we missed out?,” “What is our riskiest assumption?,” “What could go wrong?” and “Where is the data?” This prompts leaders to pause and give airtime to dissenting views.

Knowing that criticism will come your way drives you to make your idea as strong as possible beforehand. Researchers will do all they can to pick holes in their own paper before sending it to a discussant. This practice is known as a pre-mortem . In a post-mortem, a decision has flopped and you try to figure out why. In a pre-mortem, you imagine that a failure has occurred and think about all the possible causes.

A final feature of a scientific culture is the value given to dissenting voices . You might think it strange that people ever agree to be a discussant—you fly halfway around the world to be the bad guy in the room—but the profession greatly respects members who give tough but constructive evaluations. Doing so boosts their reputation, and many conferences give “best discussant” awards.

Read More: How to Actually Change Someone’s Mind

Some companies aim to foster such a culture. X, Google’s moonshot factory, gives a bonus to any employee who finds a fatal flaw that leads to their own team’s project being killed. This in turn inspires X’s engineers to be yet more daring—if they propose a crazy idea that has a fundamental defect, they’re confident that a colleague will notice it and scrap the innovation before it costs the company millions of dollars. The better a car’s brakes, the more you can push on the accelerator.

Yet not every company values dissent. In May 2022, Stuart Kirk, HSBC’s Head of Responsible Investment, gave a speech arguing that investors needn’t worry about climate change. This talk led to instant outrage, but the content was more nuanced than the headlines suggested. He pointed out that, even if the planet becomes warmer, we can invest in adapting to higher temperatures. Nor did he say that climate change isn’t a serious threat to society but rather that investors don’t bear the risks as their horizons are too short-term. HSBC suspended him, even though they’d previously signed off on the content of his talk, and the furor led to him resigning shortly afterwards.

Kirk’s delivery was sometimes sardonic, with the most-quoted line being “Who cares if Miami is six meters underwater in 100 years? Amsterdam has been six meters underwater for ages, and that’s a really nice place. We will cope with it.” However, controlling our emotions about the tone and focusing instead on the content, the speech did an important service by providing a contrasting opinion: that we’re focusing almost exclusively on climate-change mitigation and not enough on adaptation, and that investors won’t worry enough about climate change until regulators make them pay the price through carbon taxes. Suspending someone for expressing a dissenting view, even on a topic we might feel strongly about, is a deterrent to diverse thinking.

Companies are paying increasing attention to diversity under the assumption that diverse teams make better decisions. But it’s not enough to take an “add diversity and stir” approach, where a company simply hires a mix of people and leaves them to work their magic. It needs to take deliberate steps to foster a diversity of thinking. Appointing devil’s advocates, holding pre-mortems, and encouraging different viewpoints are valuable tools to building smart-thinking organizations.

Reprinted with permission from May Contain Lies: How Stories, Statistics, and Studies Exploit Our Biases—And What We Can Do about It by Alex Edmans, courtesy of the University of California Press. Copyright 2024.

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• How worrying is the rapid rise of Chinese science?

If America wants to maintain its lead, it should focus less on keeping China down

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I F THERE IS  one thing the Chinese Communist Party and America’s security hawks agree on, it is that innovation is the secret to geopolitical, economic and military superiority. President Xi Jinping hopes that science and technology will help his country overtake America. Using a mix of export controls and sanctions, politicians in Washington are trying to prevent China from gaining a technological advantage.

America’s strategy is unlikely to work. As we report this week, Chinese science and innovation are making rapid progress. It is also misguided. If America wants to maintain its lead—and to get the most benefit from the research of China’s talented scientists—it would do better to focus less on keeping Chinese science down and more on pushing itself ahead.

For centuries the West sniffed at Chinese technology. Self-regarding Europeans struggled to accept that such a far-flung place could possibly have invented the compass, the crossbow and the blast furnace. In recent decades, as China joined the world economy, its rapid catch-up and abuse of Western intellectual property meant that it was more often an imitator and a thief than an innovator. Meanwhile, its science was disparaged, partly because it encouraged researchers to churn out high volumes of poor-quality scientific papers.

It is time to lay these old ideas to rest. China is now a leading scientific power . Its scientists produce some of the world’s best research, particularly in chemistry, physics and materials science. They contribute to more papers in prestigious journals than their colleagues from America and the European Union and they produce more work that is highly cited. Tsinghua and Zhejiang universities each carry out as much cutting-edge research as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Chinese laboratories contain some of the most advanced kit, from supercomputers and ultra-high-energy detectors to cryogenic electron microscopes. These do not yet match the crown jewels of Europe and America, but they are impressive. And China hosts a wealth of talent. Many researchers who studied or worked in the West have returned home. China is training scientists, too: more than twice as many of the world’s top ai researchers got their first degree in China as in America.

In commercial innovation China is also overturning old assumptions. The batteries and electric vehicles it exports are not just cheap, but state-of-the-art. Huawei, a Chinese telecoms firm brought low after most American firms were barred from dealing with it by 2020, is resurgent today and has weaned itself off many foreign suppliers. Although it earns a third of the revenue of Apple or Microsoft, it spends nearly as much as they do on  R & D .

China is not yet the world’s dominant technological power. Huawei still has limited access to advanced chips; self-sufficiency is costly. The country’s many state-owned firms are sclerotic. Much of the spending on research is guided by the state’s heavy hand. And some mediocre universities still produce mediocre research. China’s innovation, in other words, is inefficient. Yet it is an inefficiency that Mr Xi is willing to tolerate in order to produce a sheaf of world-class results.

All this poses a dilemma for America. With more good science comes new knowledge that benefits all humanity, by solving the world’s problems and improving lives, as well as deepening understanding. Thanks to China’s agronomists, farmers everywhere could reap more bountiful harvests. Its perovskite-based solar panels will work just as well in Gabon as in the Gobi desert. But a more innovative China may also thrive in fields with military uses, such as quantum computing or hypersonic weapons. It will also aim to convert its technological prowess into economic and diplomatic influence.

So far America has focused on the threats, by trying to stymie China using sanctions and by limiting the flow of data, talent and ideas. After all, hawks say, China is itself notoriously secretive. It failed to share its early work on the virus that causes covid-19, a shocking breach of its responsibilities that could have cost lives—possibly millions of them. If Chinese science is thriving thanks to these tactics, then perhaps America should simply be even harder line and more restrictive.

That overestimates America’s ability to constrain the whole of Chinese science. Even Huawei has prospered despite foreign sanctions. And it underestimates the cost to America’s own science—including the technology that underpins its security. Rather than copy China’s tactics, America should sharpen its own innovative edge, by enhancing the traits that made it successful.

One of its strengths is openness. America has long been a magnet for the world’s brightest minds, and it should continue to attract them—even from China. Some work needs to be secret, obviously, but a presumption against hiring Chinese researchers would deprive America of precious talent. America must also be open to ideas. Citations have increased, but too few Western scientists take note of Chinese papers. A deal in the 1970s by Deng Xiaoping and Jimmy Carter to enhance academic collaboration was grudgingly extended in March for only six months, because of Republicans’ fears about national security. It should be renewed for longer. American and Soviet scientists worked together even in the depths of the cold war.

Another strength is America’s dynamic economy, in which the best universities, government agencies and companies innovate. But too much of a scientist’s time is spent on bureaucracy. Finding faster ways to allocate grants, say by lottery, could help. Last, America should not blunt its market mechanism. In China most research money comes from the state; in America the private sector is a bigger spender. It is not White House edicts that find and develop the best ideas, but markets powered by competition.

The fact that an authoritarian regime is nearing the technological frontier is alarming. Yet America should not strive to become more like China, but to draw on its own distinctive strengths. The result will be more scientific discovery and technical ingenuity—and ultimately more security.  ■

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This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “The rise of Chinese science”

Leaders June 15th 2024

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