Although hidden from the public eye, warehouses play a crucial role in keeping businesses running smoothly and efficiently. These storage areas keep your inventory safe and protected from damage and theft.
A warehouse also allows you to receive, store, and distribute or ship your products with ease, enabling you to save time and money. You might want to also think about warehouse automation as well.
Choosing the right warehouse for your goods, therefore, is vital for the efficient and fruitful operations of your retail business.
However, having an effective warehouse management system is also crucial in running a successful retail business. It can boost operational efficiency and lower costs while increasing customer satisfaction.
Investing in the Right Warehouse Management Technology
Using the appropriate technology can help you avoid or minimize various warehousing issues that can cost your business a lot of problems. These include incorrect identification of products during receipt and dispatch, difficulties locating items in the warehouse, and other manual errors.
These issues can impact the productivity and profitability of your business.
A Radio Frequency Identification or RFID monitoring system is one of the best solutions you can invest in to manage your warehouse more efficiently.
Using RFID technology in your warehouse management system can help you stay on top of your supply chains and track the entry and exit of products and many other operations.
When you can manage all of these efficiently, you can increase profits and, at the same time, reduce costs caused by inefficient management of your inventory.
But what exactly are the benefits you can expect when you invest in RFID technology to use for managing your warehouse? Here are the top five:
1. Increased Accuracy
The nature of RFID technology makes it one of the most efficient business solutions around.
This technology uses radio waves to transmit information from RFID tags to an RFID reader. Each tag contains a sensor attached to an antenna and unique identifiers that facilitate the transmission of data to the reader.
An RFID reader can scan more than 100 tags simultaneously. Moreover, they do not require line of sight visibility to work.
As a result, this technology makes it easier and more efficient to automate some processes that would otherwise require additional time and resources that are also typically subject to human error.
Having the ability to scan numerous items at once makes recording and organizing new supplies faster and more efficient.
Moreover, you will have fewer difficulties moving and taking inventory and identifying and adjusting stock disparities.
All these result in higher inventory accuracy.
This improved accuracy also means you can avoid overstock and out-of-stock situations, or instances that can cause you to lose money. Additionally, it translates to more efficient use of your warehouse space.
Finally, RFID technology can help your warehouse workers confirm quickly whether the right products are added to your inventory and sent to your retail stores and customers if you sell online.
This can give you an assurance that you will always satisfy your shoppers, whether they shop in your physical store or online store.
2. Reduced Human Errors
Many of the usual and costly warehousing problems you may face are caused by human error. Examples of these include inventory inaccuracy, redundant processes, unsatisfactory quality control, and poor use of warehouse space.
You can prevent these problems from coming up or fix them with RFID technology.
Using an RFID system that automatically records and collates data eliminates the need for any operator input. This, in turn, reduces the risk of human errors that can affect data results.
Additionally, the use of this technology can also reduce the rate of shelving errors. Although this may seem like a minor change, it effectively lowers the customers’ chances of receiving the wrong products and eliminates the guesswork needed to identify where mistakes were made.
All these can improve your overall business operations and have positive effects on your sales and profits.
3. Time-Saving
Labor is one of the biggest expenses you can incur when you lease or own and manage a busy warehouse. You can reduce your overheads significantly by investing in an RFID system.
With RFID technology, you won’t have to employ people to handle various inventory processes. The tags will be automatically read by a fixed or handheld reader, which means you will have up-to-date stock data every time.
This system eliminates the need for time-consuming manual stock take and inventories. You can complete these processes, which often takes people days to accomplish, within hours.
The faster process ensures you get quicker ROI and allows you to save time and money — resources you can allocate to other elements of your business.
4. Inventory Visibility
Losing and misplacing inventory and looking for the right products are problems that can give you and your team headaches on a regular basis.
The time you spend looking for these items also means wasting resources that can be used on more important business processes.
You can save your staff the time and effort in looking for products by using an RFID-based warehouse management program with a Real-Time Location System or RTLS.
This feature gives you a real-time view of all inventory as you receive them and everything that is currently available, and where they are. As such, no one in your team would save a significant amount of time locating products that need to go to your store or to send to customers.
5. Access to Data-Driven Insight
Having access to real-time, accurate product information is an advantage that can set your business apart and contribute to its growth and success.
It helps you make informed decisions that can sustain the growth of your business and enable you to become a better manager and leader.
The collected inventory data also enables you to analyze broad patterns relating to internal warehouse management and vital transport processes.
This process will help you and your team make smarter decisions regarding the movement and sale of both your top-selling and poorly performing products. As a result, you can get more from your popular inventory and ensure you don’t suffer a huge loss from the unpopular ones.
When chosen and implemented correctly, you will be able to experience first-hand the remarkable benefits of using an RFID system in your warehouse and business.
With thorough research and careful planning, an RFID system can bring significant returns to your retail business.