Warehouses are facing immense pressure to keep up with customer demand and expectations, and it’s not a sudden or temporary trend. Omnichannel sales models and on-demand commerce have proliferated over the past decade, and they’ve permanently altered the warehousing industry in profound ways.
In just 10 years, warehouses have seen substantial changes:
Many warehouses have struggled to adapt to this new environment and keep up with growing demand and expectations because they’ve largely operated the same way and using the same systems and processes for 10 to 20 years or more.
While there have been incremental investments in warehouse modernization and new technologies over the years, previous efforts have mostly been reactionary and siloed. Many of the piecemealed hardware and software platforms that warehouse operators rely on aren’t capable of scaling to meet today’s and tomorrow’s demands. This creates a number of challenges that prevent the warehouse from operating at maximum efficiency.
With more SKUs and order volumes to manage, there’s more pressure on inventory accuracy and availability than ever before. But manual inventory counts, outdated systems, and inefficient processes lead to persistent problems with inventory errors, out-of-stocks, and replenishment issues.
You can’t manage what you can’t see, and a lack of visibility into the supply chain and into activity across the warehouse means many businesses can’t meet customer demands for better traceability, order tracking, and fulfillment performance.
Many warehouses can’t keep up with order and turnaround demand because they’re still relying on outdated and manual picking processes that impede productivity and increase the likelihood of human error. Workers are walking many miles per day, often on inefficient routes to inventory locations, and then relying on manual pick lists or juggling multiple mobile devices while they try to handle and pick orders.
While many warehouses are now using handheld mobile devices and scanners to automate order and inventory management, others are still relying heavily on manual data entry, which slows down processes exponentially and creates endless opportunities for human error.
Meeting today’s customer demands requires warehouse managers and workers to collaborate and work together more efficiently, but disparate and disconnected communication systems can get in the way of the real-time coordination that’s required for the job.
Many warehouses struggle with a lack of system integration, with systems that can’t talk to each other or don’t integrate seamlessly and easily, so they can’t access and share the information they need, measure performance, or manage operations effectively.
The good news is that the latest innovations and developments in warehouse technologies offer a way forward through mobile transformation. By making smart, targeted investments in mobile technologies throughout your warehouse, you can solve today’s biggest challenges while modernizing your warehouse for tomorrow’s opportunities.
You can do this by implementing technologies to help automate and optimize processes throughout your operations, and by upgrading legacy systems and hardware to ensure you have the right solutions for the future ahead.
Of course, overhauling processes and systems that have been in place for many years isn’t going to happen overnight, especially given the complexity of today’s supply chains. This is where planning, strategy, and good execution can make all the difference.
In our next chapter, we’re going to discuss the key considerations warehouses should keep in mind when planning a major mobile transformation.
30.5% to 37.7%: The rate of Innovators in manufacturing compared to the overall average, placing them far behind in mobile maturity. Still, only 17.1% of manufacturing organizations feel at high risk of tech-led disruption, which is lower than the overall average of 20.9% and lower than any other single industry segment. This suggests a level of comfort among manufacturing operations regarding the capabilities of their tech stacks despite their lack of innovation.
