What is Supply Chain Management? How it is done?

As the name suggests, supply chain management denotes the entire process by which the raw materials are procured, and after all the procedural forms, the outcomes are obtained. Therefore, it is an integration of the market's primary two wings: the demand and supply of a particular organization. It mainly objectifies customers' tastes, preferences, and needs and accordingly plans out to prioritize customer value. Channelizing the products, distributing them, and dealing with the end products' transportation and shipment policies are also taken care of by the team of supply chain managers. Nevertheless, warehousing holds an excellent value in the realms of the supply chain. Warehouses are primarily used for storing bulk units, and in general, the producers, manufacturers, the ones dealing with imports and exports use these warehouses. Warehousing can be counted as a prime necessity of the supply chain, and not merely it's component. The materials acquired and the materials released are kept in an account in the warehouse. The warehouse manager must be vigilant enough to track the efficient and smooth flow of goods and materials using the correct methods and workforce. In today's world of cut-throat competition and globalization, it is not an easy job when people are getting all sorts of comforts at their fingertips. Right from the source point to the point of use, the goods and services' movements have to be monitored by the team of warehousing.

WAREHOUSE MANAGEMENT

As a warehouse is an intrinsic part of the supply chain, managing the warehouse requires much attention and expertise. It is more so as the tastes, preferences, and the expectations of the customers have changed massively where they desire things to be delivered at their doorstep with much ease and convenience. The promptness of the services and in a cost-effective manner is something that today's customers want. Thus, regulating proper management in a warehouse is exceptionally essential. In fact, in establishing adequate control in this regard, one has to be efficient with the latest technology, must have sufficient knowledge of I.T and the latest engineering tools and last but not least, should possess a strong understanding of human resources. The warehouse management mainly involves the measures adopted and the processes involved in handling the products in their storage location. The first process important in managing the warehouse is storing the materials in readily available storage tools like the box, drums, pallets etc. The essential steps that follow after that are labelling the products accurately to avoid any mess. Then comes the most crucial step of stock-keeping, where the exact number and quantity of a variety of stocks are kept and maintained without any error. Thus, the management and accountability of the operations, which take daily, is the vital role that the warehouse team efficiently plays. Right from receiving the products, storing, labelling, keeping a count and finally, the shipment processes are handled by the warehouse teams.

ROLE OF WAREHOUSE MANAGERS

The pivotal roles that the warehouse managers play deserves a special mention. The warehouse manager is the one who is responsible for handling the inventories right from their source until they are released or moved. The tracking, storing, labelling, and proper shipment are all taken care of by the warehouse managers. The five essential processes that the warehouse manager needs to undertake are as follows-

1. TRACKING OF INVENTORY 

  The efficiency of a warehouse manager and his team lies in the fact that they can track their stocks' volume and have a clear-cut knowledge of its storage. As the company grows, the warehouse grows on a large scale and expands in different locations where inventories are distributed. Thus, tracking and having knowledge of its whereabouts is extremely important.

    2. RESPONSIBILITY IN PICKING THE INVENTORIES AND PACKING

  The essential two fundamental functions performed by the warehouse managers and his efficient team members are picking the stock and packaging them orderly. The manager should undertake the responsibility of maintaining a good list of stocks when receiving them. The picking of inventories is usually done in the forms of zonal wise picking, batch-wise picking and wave pattern of picking. After picking up, a receipt is handed over to the picker mentioning the whereabouts of the products. After all these, the packaging is done by a team of packers who store them properly and add shipment labels.

    3. ROLE IN RECEIVING AND STORING OF INVENTORIES 

  Receiving or unloading the inventories is also undertaken by the warehouse team's team, monitored by the warehouse managers. Once the stocks are unloaded, they are received, scanned and taken to the warehouse manager's storage locations and his team members. In this regard, they take the software's help for monitoring each box and storing them accordingly.

    4. SHIPPING RESPONSIBILITIES 

  Based on the clients' preferences, the delivery dates and options are fixed by the warehouse managers and accordingly, the inventories are shipped to their destinations. The delivery partners are DHL, FedEx, UPS etc., who picks the packages and move them to their next destination. Once the order's shipment is made, the warehouse manager and his team members take the responsibility of providing the tracking id to the clients for transparency and clarity.

    5. ROLE IN REPORTING

  The last and final responsibility of the warehouse manager and his team rests on the reports' efficiency and accuracy. It includes the counts of the orders, the role of the staffs involved, punctuality of the shipment and so on. Inventory forecasting is also considered a significant part of the reporting. With the help of the reports, a clear knowledge about the employees' training and their respective areas and licensing can be identified easily. 

POLICIES FOR ACHIEVING BETTER EFFICIENCY 

In today's fast-paced world, there could not be a stagnancy that should come in handling the warehouse. The better the efficiency of the warehouse, the larger the growth of the client base. The quick, error-free, and accurate shipping of bulk products is quite a challenge in today's e-commerce and digitalization era. The following are a sneak peek into the policies any warehouse management team can adopt to increase efficiency levels.

1. OPTIMISATION OF SPACE

 Space is indeed considered to be very important while storing bulk units of products. Thus, space must be wisely utilized rather than opting for new warehouses now and then. For this, the manager and team must possess adequate knowledge of stacking items using the available space. They must be knowledgeable enough to stack the things as per height, use the vertical areas along with the horizontal ones, and add shelves and storage units. 

    2. OPTING FOR LEAN INVENTORY 

 Adopting and accepting lean inventory is exceptionally essential for the growth and the retainment of the warehouse's service. The basic concept of lean inventory is to go for small units and try to get recurring orders from smaller companies.

    3. ORGANISING WORKSTATIONS 

Organizing work stations aggravates the productivity of the warehouse executive teams. Organizing work stations require much skill and knowledge. The work of organizing the warehouse too is done in an organized and planned manner. Right from the entry of inventories, the workers resort to the 5s method for managing the workstations, including sorting out the products, setting them in order, shining them, standardizing them and sustaining them adequately without causing any damage.

    4. OPTIMISING LABOUR EFFICIENCY 

  For increasing the efficiency of the warehouse, the efficiency of the labours must be increased. Workers must be given adequate training where they get proper knowledge of the industry. They should be taught about the different storage options, shelving patterns, and identifying which products need to be stored in which storage device. This, in return, will help the warehouse to soar and achieve more.

CHALLENGES THAT ARE FACED BY WAREHOUSE MANAGER

The different challenges that are faced by the warehouse managers can be listed as follows-

1. PRESSURE OF COST CURTAILING 

 The primary challenge involved is the pressure of reducing the company cost and at the same time targeting for higher turnover and better satisfaction. As transport and shipment costs are increasing and these are unavoidable bearings of the warehouse, they need to reduce the other expenses.

    2. UNDERTAKING GOOD ORDERS 

 The key indicator of the warehouse's growth is that one of the gravest challenges the managers face is acquiring and fulfilling the correct order. A perfect order metric is quite challenging for the manager as well as his team. An ideal order denotes the one which is correctly delivered on time and without any defects.

    3. ACQUIRING SMALLER AND MORE FREQUENT ORDERS 

   Another challenge that most managers face in warehousing is to go for smaller units of products and orders to optimize the floor space. Thus, reducing the amount of inventory in the stockroom increases the efficiency of the work and helps them meet the demands in an organized manner.

    4. DEALING WITH ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

  This is another challenging aspect that the warehouse managers need to be extra cautious about the impacts of their warehouse operations on the environment. The issues involve throwing biodegradable wastes, emission of heat, disposing of cardboards, tapes etc.

HOW TECHNOLOGY CAN BE USED

In today's world of technological boon, warehouse managers have got a plethora of technological devices and tools to select for the betterment of their products and services. The technology involved in warehousing targets to reduce the costs and simultaneously go for the betterment of the streamline operations. The technology has a pivotal role in the evolving warehouse mechanisms. With the introduction of different forms of robotics, various blockchain technologies and state of the art management systems integrate and aim to better efficiency in carrying out the warehouse's operations. The fundamental technological tools involved are voice technology, data interfaces, the internet etc.

CONCLUSION

Thus, keeping in mind the warehouse's challenges, which is undoubtedly one of the biggest weapons of supply chain management, the staff training and adoption of new technology becomes indispensable. With the growing demands of people, the warehouse team needs to be more active, updated and versed with modern technologies. These warehouse teams must emphasize hiring experienced labours and, at the same time, should recruit a young, energetic task force who can work for the industry with much zeal and dedication with proper support and training. The employee's selection plays a very influential role in the functioning of the warehouse. The utilization of the employees in the right place, in the correct segment, can increase the productivity of the warehouse to a great extent.