Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a cell phone app that could show how much food I have left, and send out a notification when I’m running low on food, spices, and condiments, so I know exactly what to buy when I stop by the store?
When I was onboarding with ProPack, I got the chance to work with every department to get a better idea of how operations worked. After I worked with the fulfillment team for a few weeks, I spent time with the inventory team.
During the transition between fulfillment to inventory, one big question was answered: how does the inventory team know when to replenish the forward pick bins for the fulfillment department?
The answer is through low inventory alerts. Our app lets the inventory team know when forward pick bins are almost depleted, and when to replenish them. This allows for continuous productivity; we are always aiming for a quick turnaround time on orders so we can get the order to the correct shipper before the cutoff time. One 5-minute delay in any process can lead to us missing that cutoff time, and lead to the customer getting their product later than promised.
During the receiving process, the inventory team is responsible for counting the product and putting it away in bulk. For quality control and accurate inventory, we assign a batch to the product, count the individual items, and store it by the pallet until the forward pick bin needs to be replenished.
This process, in addition to our regular cycle and reconciliation counts through our app, allows us to keep our inventory levels accurate inside of our proprietary software.
As discussed in the fifth paragraph of the March 14th blog, our clients can save money if the cases and pallets are barcoded by the manufacturer. Since this simplifies our scan-in process, we are happy to pass the savings onto you by making the count and put-away charges at the pallet level, instead of at the case or item level- we can count your inventory levels with the simple scan of a barcode, and the less scanning we have to do, the cheaper it gets for our clients!
New apps are developed every day to simplify processes in day-to-day life and in business operations. If you reduce the amount of time to complete one task, it opens up an opportunity to do something else productive. If I could save thirty minutes by having a grocery inventory app, I could spend that much more time with my family in the evenings!
To learn more about ProPack’s 3PL services, please contact us at 360.332.2555, or on our website at http://www.propack.com/contact.
