Directors or managers of distribution centers are in charge, primarily, of managing operations associated with order fulfillment. Activities of receipt, shipment, inventory, among others, turn the DC into a focal point of any business.
Here are some areas of opportunity and tools currently faced by DC managers:
1. Agility in product assortment
Clearly, the way orders are placed has diversified.
For various reasons, society in general purchases products as it requires them on a day-to-day basis and, as a result, orders and distribution have been automated; this means less quantities are demanded in an order, but more orders are placed per day.
With the arrival of e-commerce and multichannel experiences, companies receive too many orders to fill every day. All of this under controlled environments, because if a person decides to order either online, in a store, or at the distribution center, one should make sure of having the inventory 100% updated in order to meet that customer’s demand.
Directors manage the DC in terms of quantity, time, and manner. They constantly face unforeseen events and high/low variations on seasonality. They have the great challenge of being agile, precise, and excellent in quality according to the order fulfillment. Only then you can access opportunities from an automated DC, which will ensure your company obtains new customers and satisfies the current ones.
2. Choosing the best tools
Another challenge for managers is choosing the best tools, which include improvements to the organization and infrastructure. The software is critical, since it is technology that will facilitate monitoring of work processes.
The WMS supports management tasks, makes intelligent reassortment (anticipated planning to inventory minimums), while working by minimum/maximum rules and inventory capacities.
On the other hand, WCS works by algorithms, which allow you to decide what kind of products will be needed in the pre-established hour or day. It achieves a refill that streamlines processes.
There is also the WES, which basically allows a combination of the previous two and can manage your DC with advantages over WMS and WCS.
The tools also include various technologies, like automated warehouses AS/RS to store and fill pallets, miniloads for storage and assortment of boxes, A/frame assortment of items, shuttles and carrousels for storage and assortment of thousands of SKUs.
There are many areas of opportunity according to every specific need; a good consultant can guide you in the ideal mix for your company.
3. Route optimization and coordination with the operation
Starting from the fact that, to optimize routes the essential process is the analysis of industrial engineering (known as the transportation problem), which optimizes flows between the various sources and network nodes, it is also convenient to intertwine the internal operation of DCs with many of the things happening outside related to the supply chain.
This area of opportunity can be exploited using a real TMS, which is based on a specific mathematical model. The result is to transform an inefficient area into a place of opportunity, directly linked with the continuity of your company in the market.
These areas of opportunity exist in the vast majority of DCs, and you must take them as such: areas likely to become true profit centers and key to your business success.
To generate key benefits and prevent your company from being within financial or operational risks, GIEICOM provides a number of technology areas that will provide business certainty. Take corrective and opportunity actions promptly.
