Summary
Setting up a warehouse is a challenging task; for a compelling order fulfillment journey, all warehouse operations must be logically aligned, and this is the area where appropriate warehouse performance metrics come in.
Read this article to identify the 5 warehouse performance metrics to optimize your warehouse operations using automated dimensioning systems.
Written for:
- Logistics Specialist:
Working with suppliers and customers to complete shipment, understanding the Supply Chain and Logistics industry trends and the impact of AI in their core domain.
- Operations Specialist:
Ensuring that procedures and repetitive functions are to keep the warehouse running safely and effectively. Concentrate on raising efficiency by automation and bettering business processes.
- Warehouse Automation Manager:
Understanding how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming warehouses and how it can make their jobs easier.
Introduction
A decade ago, warehouses were just massive spaces where we store myriad products for wholesale and retail purposes. Although today, Warehouses are the gold bars of eCommerce businesses. By tracking our warehouse performance, we can analyze the efficiency of the profit we can hit each year. Setting up metrics in the warehouse isn’t a simple task; you’ll need to look at various measures, like time, efficiency, and quality indicators. To build a successful warehouse, you need to start tracking the details, and it couldn’t effortlessly be achieved without the measurements! To perform various tasks and improve warehouse competence, you need to deploy the appropriate automation technology to your workspace.
Deploying automation to optimize and drive more saving in your warehouse
Currently, various warehouse managers are facing pressure to optimize the warehouse to gain average profit. To surge maximum operational efficiency, you need to adopt a warehouse management solution. To meet the latest business trends, we need to analyze various warehouse solutions that best fit your vertical.
Here are the top 2 warehouse solutions that can be deployed to increase warehouse operations effectively:
Drone technology:
UAV (unmanned ariel vehicle), otherwise known as drone powered by artificial intelligence, has recently gained prominence in distribution centers and eCommerce warehouse industries. Drone technology’s two primary roles are flight and navigation. Drones were initially used for photography, research, surveillance, and communication, yet more benefits became apparent as the technology advanced.
The following are some of the notable advantages of using drones in the warehouse:
1. Increased room efficiency and lower operating costs
2. Inventory visibility
3. Supply Chain Optimization
4. Minimal capital investment
5. Increased Security.
Automated dimensioning system:
The automated dimensioning system is a computer vision-based technology built to calibrate varied-sized parcels’ real-time dimensional information such as length, breadth, width, and height in less than a second. These automated dimensioning systems are of two types: parcel dimensioner and pallet dimensioner. The parcel dimensioner helps calculate the dimensional information of small and medium boxes and cartons, whereas the pallet dimensioners help estimate the dimensional measurements of freights, pallets, and crates.
These automated dimensioners provide decision-making inputs based on the business needs and requirements. These automated dimensioning technologies aim to support warehouses, order fulfillment centers, logistics, and wholesale distributors. Besides, with these automated dimensioners, we can enable other add-ons such as barcode scanners, printers, weighing scales, and WMS/ERP software.
Notable benefits of deploying automated dimensioning solution include:
- Accuracy and precision:
In the warehouse industry, precision and accuracy are critical. The amount of inventory you have on hand should be represented correctly in your inventory report. According to the recent pool, a 97 percent accuracy rate is a fair benchmark in the warehouse. By adopting an automated dimensioning system, we can easily uplift warehouse functions by generating precise data.
- Reduced human errors:
Any single error made inside a warehouse operation can have a detrimental effect on the warehouse’s safety and profitability. When you look at the most common warehouse mishaps, you’ll notice that human error accounts for a significant portion of them. The traditional dimensioning method leads to more mistakes which results in unnecessary shipping costs. We can promptly reduce dimensional errors and save time by introducing an automated dimensioning solution in the warehouse.
- Increased productivity:
Warehouse productivity refers to a collection of metrics that management uses to determine the quality of their warehouse operations. To rocket productivity, we must perform several tasks, including maximizing warehouse room space, organizing workstations, implementing lean inventory, and improving labor performance. We can effectively conduct all of the specified operations by installing the dimensioning technology in the warehouse.
- Future storage planning
Every warehouse has its own set of issues; however, preparing for a new one necessitates fundamental decisions. The planning process may assist you in making better use of the space you already have. With the appropriate dimensional information, we can quickly evaluate room storage, which assists future warehouse storage planning.
9 warehouse performance metrics that can be improved by deploying an automated dimensioning system to your warehouse
- Inventory turnover:
It refers to the number of times your warehouse goes through its entire stock in a year. The turnover rate indicates how effective your warehouse performs every year. By adopting automated dimensioning systems, the movements of goods in the warehouse would be agile and seamless.
- Inventory accuracy:
Inventory accuracy plays a paramount role during order fulfillment. If your accuracy isn’t good, you could lose many shoppers because your computer shows the product you don’t have in stock. The automated dimensioning solution can aid in generating accurate product details.
- Improve productivity by eliminating paper processes:
As technology progresses, more companies are gradually shifting their paper-based activities to digital formats. We can reduce readability problems, missing paperwork, and other issues associated with transferring handwritten data to digital form by going digital. Since the AI-powered dimensioning technology records the dimensional information within itself, it removes the need for manual paperwork.
- Eliminate hand-operated pallet and parcel dimensioning:
In warehouses, the traditional dimensioning process is quite time-consuming. The warehouse personnel utilizes tape and a ruler to calibrate the dimensional details of the pallet or parcel. With the automated dimensioning system, we can eliminate the manual dimensioning and cater the dimensional information in less than a second.
- Optimize your floor plan:
As eCommerce warehouses fill with large online orders, warehouse associates can review to see if the floor plan is still functional as per their working environment, and this involves determining shoppers need, allocating space for both warehouse solutions and a variety of package sizes, ensuring whether all the pallets are accessible, and checking the floor plan prior to implementation.There are, of course, a slew of other warehouses’ KPIs to remember. However, we believe that there are five that are particularly important to track.
Putting all together
The efficiency in which you turn a profit is determined by your warehouse KPIs. It would be best to have a warehouse solution like the automated dimensioning system that provides accurate dimensioning data, And the data would decide the performance and profitability of your warehouse every year.
To find out more, we encourage you to check out our company website at www.visailabs.com
Simplify your dimensioning needs with vMeasure Parcel Pro
vMeasure Parcel Pro computer vision-based automated dimensioning system is built from the ground level to calibrate the dimensional information of parcels and pallets in less than a second. We can integrate other devices such as barcode scanners, label printers, ERP/ WMS software, and weighing scales with this dimensioning technology.
