In this article we explain the importance of this series of processes that preserve or move products within the warehouse until they reach the final consumer.

In every distribution company, one of the fundamental tasks is linked to the control and physical protection of its stock items, this is what inventory management is all about.

Do you know how this process can be? We explain it to you:

Multiple warehouses

It is very common for companies to manage several warehouses to manage their stock. These can be real or logical inventories, used for the internal movement of inventory within the same warehouse.

Some examples of warehouses:

• Various locations
• Goods for resale
• Merchandise to assemble packs
• Materials and packaging
• Materials and raw materials
• Quality control
• Returns

Warehouse transfers

When there are several warehouses, there must be different documents that serve to transfer products from one warehouse to another. Performing these actions quickly and accurately is key.

Product Attribute Management

Products with attributes such as an expiration date or a batch serial number, for example, require the software to have this functionality for their management.

Serial numbers are used for full product traceability and are used, for example, for goods requiring warranty service. These numbers facilitate historical tracking of an item from receipt to delivery and post-delivery.

Assembling and disassembling of packs or kits

You may need this functionality to perform marketing actions by putting products together and marketing them as one.

Assembling packs

In many occasions you may need to create sets of items to sell them as a single product. To do this, the software should facilitate the configuration of a bill of materials where you will identify which products and materials you need to put together to create a new entity that you will define as a product and provide it with a SKU code.

Whether you make these assemblies in:
your facility with your own staff
your facility with third-party personnel
in a third party facility with outsourced personnel

You can use a warehouse created for this purpose that will serve as a control.

Disassembly of packs

Here you will disassemble a pack into several products, giving it access to your warehouse.

Inventory stock taking

The inventory count (or physical count) is one of the procedures that are done in order to observe the existence of merchandise at a certain date.

This method allows management to obtain certain benefits, among which we find:

• Identify obsolete, damaged or expired merchandise.
• Identify shortages, either due to theft or errors at the time of entering purchases in the warehouse.
• Identify shortages, either due to theft or errors at the time of entering purchases in the warehouse.

Better inventory management: knowing the actual inventory in the entity allows for better planning of resources and purchases.

There are many benefits that result from performing inventory counts, and the software should help you to do it in the most efficient way.

Cycle stock taking

The key is not to wait until the end of the year to keep track. A policy of continuous monitoring through cyclic inventories will help you to reduce margins of error in the operational processes and in the accuracy of the information.

Mobility for inventory taking and picking

Mobile PDA tools can support all warehouse processes and that is why the systems usually have the capacity to perform inventory taking and picking, picking, receiving and delivery tasks in an automated way.

Barcodes

Barcode management is essential to automate warehouse tasks. The definition of EANs can be done in different ways and this is an important point to define the scope of the system to be implemented:

Several barcodes per product: a product normally has a single EAN by which it is identified. However, due to the changes that may be made by an importer or even by the same supplier with different promotions, there are times when the same product comes with different EAN codes.

If the system does not have the possibility of defining more than one EAN for each product, when this happens, a new product must be created, which will cause the loss of the correct traceability of the purchases and sales of the same product.

Definition of EAN per Product-Supplier:

If the system allows defining a different EAN for each Supplier from whom it is purchased, it will allow greater efficiency and better reports in the management of the same products. EAN creation and label printing: a good system will allow you to create new Products or Packs as well as the definition of EAN to apply and the printing of labels for them. This will allow you to unify in a single system all the operations related to the creation of EANs and Packs.

Mobility for inventory taking and picking

The mobile tools or PDA collectors can support all warehouse processes and that is why the systems normally have the capacity to perform the following operations by means of data collectors:

• product receiving
• inventory taking
• product separation tasks, picking
• transfer between warehouses
• product delivery, dispatching

Do you want to know more about how a software can help you in the inventory management of your retailer? Find out in our e-book.