Warehouse services play an important role in fulfilling your customer orders quickly and efficiently-and ensuring that your products reach their final destination in good condition.
But why is it important to work with a professional warehousing services provider when fulfilling such orders, rather than putting your own staff on the task?
Here are some of the common pitfalls of the pick and pack process-and why supply chain service providers can be the best way to overcome them.
Overcoming Inexperience
One of the major pitfalls many warehousing companies encounter is finding experienced staff to pick and pack orders.
It’s not as easy as it might seem, and loading goods on to a new pallet, or filling a container for shipment out to the customer, is a legitimate logistical challenge in its own right.
Simply placing relatively inexperienced warehouse staff on the pick and pack job can lead to inefficiencies due to container and pallet space not being used to the fullest extent-something professional pick and pack services can help you to overcome.
Protecting Products
Just as you need to make the most of the packing space available to you on a pallet or in a container, you must also ensure that your products are packed in a way that protects them against damage.
This may mean ensuring that any original protective packaging is still intact between the time that they arrive at your depot, and the moment they leave your warehouse.
Again, though, the efficiency with which you use the available space can have an important impact on protecting the goods themselves, as you can ensure they are packed with less room to fall over during transit.
Once again, professional supply chain service providers can offer the expertise needed to securely pack your products, ready for delivery to the customer.
Avoiding Errors
While the pick and pack process sounds simple at its most basic, it can quickly become much more complex in a busy warehouse with lots of deliveries coming and going, and different products heading out to fulfill many different orders.
Professional pick and pack service providers know how to deal with many different orders at once, splitting incoming shipments effectively ready for them to be recombined as new customer orders.
By keeping concentration levels high and streamlining the process where possible, efficiency can be maximised without any errors being made-two fundamental aspects of running a large, busy warehouse effectively and with good levels of customer satisfaction.
The Strongest Link
With this all-round approach to avoiding the most common errors in warehouse processing, you can ensure you are seen as the strongest link in your supply chain.
Supply chain service providers ease your administrative burden, eliminate the need for costly and time-consuming staff training, and leave you better able to focus on the core running of your business.
As a result, the potential pitfalls of pick and pack need never worry you again - and should never pose any threat to your positive customer service record, either. For pick and pack services, visit npfulfilment.com.au.
An article published and written by Andy Westley. He has worked in pick and pack services for retail supply chains for several decades, and lives with his wife and two sons in Lymm.
