Stay Connected: The Gap Between The Office And Warehouse
Working together to improve productivity and simplicity, several departments must create a smooth flow or orders and tasks. Everyone has a role to play, from the employees, supervisors, managers and heads of departments.
The heads of departments should never be locked away in their office, they need to show their face to the men and women on the ground in the warehouses. With this in mind, your head office and your warehouse can stay connected.
Always be proactive and shorten the amount of time it takes for employees to bring up a problem with their supervisors to when it finally reaches your ears. Monitor how efficient your warehouse is and how well it complies with the wishes of the office.
Be fluid and assign tasks on the fly which will help to lessen the gap in the middle.
Management and giving orders
To keep a warehouse operating smoothly no matter what kind of external factors there are leaning on it, real-time task management has to be the norm.Inventory management systems are the key to communicating the hard goods you have in the warehouse to the sales teams. If the sales department is taking in a lot of purchases from customers, they need to know how many of them can be served by what the warehouse has in stock.
Trouble arises when the warehouse cannot effectively communicate with employees in the office of the inventory number. Sales might be continuing to rise while there’s no way to fulfill them. This is going to create a backlog of orders, all of them will be late and trust issues will form by customers not getting the products they paid for.
So keeping a good stranglehold of your inventory with a system like POS payment processing, helps to keep you constantly informed of what’s going on.
Not only can you manage inventory on this system but you can make purchases from one point as well. It's easy to manage your inventory because there is stock tracking software implemented into the system as well as the ability to add multiple prices or modifiers.
From this station, you can also assign employees roles and permission levels which is incredibly useful when your warehouse needs more eyes and ears at ground level.
Tracking moving situations
What really puts a sudden halt on a warehouse’s ability to fulfill orders is something like an accident. It could be that one of your racks tips over, spilling products all over the floor.Not only could one or more of your employees be crushed and seriously hurt, a whole raft of other concerns pop up. Your manpower may have decreased, a certain aisle may no longer be open so more time is needed to transport goods, there may be a dangerous toxin or gas that is being released, etc.
Any number of issues can suddenly come out of nowhere and drastically put your warehouse fulfillment ability into disarray.
Therefore having data capture solutions keeps supervisors and managers informed. The sometimes harsh environment of warehouses due to cold, heat or accidents, can deplete the orders that the employees can manage.
By having a real-time communication tool such as portable handheld computers, walkie talkies or perhaps mobile phones specifically for work, you maximise the chances of effective understanding of developing issues.
Lead from the front
You’d be surprised at how much of a morale boost it is for employees, to see their boss visit the warehouse floor.The CEO and other C-suite ranks should make a real charge to lead from the front, speak to normal employees in the warehouse and ask them how their issues could be better understood by those in the office.
Don’t just speak with supervisors and managers in the meeting rooms, but go to their areas of responsibility and bring up points you have discussed. It's at this time that real-world problems can be shown to you in the warehouse.
Sometimes the best way to learn and understand their concerns is to just see it with your own eyes. This bridges the gap between upper and middle-management.
Never see your warehouse as some kind of distant land. It's part of your business just as much as the sales department in the office is.
Show your face to the employees once in a while and stay connected with your inventory with a point of sale system.
