The Benefits of using Business Intelligence for Warehouse Management
Business Intelligence can take care of a lot, and warehouse management fits right in the slot. How do the horizons of warehouse management widen when it gets help from business intelligence? Read here.
Warehouse Management - once considered a task of monumental difficulty, has been pulled down many levels of difficulty thanks to Business Intelligence. Now, what is exactly Business Intelligence and what does it bring to the table? How does it exactly benefit the warehouse management process, and how can it benefit your company's warehouse management as well? The answers are right here- let's take a look.
Warehouse Management: The Process
In simplified terms, warehouse management entails overseeing procedures, people, and operations, both internal and collaborative with external stakeholders. To that end, warehouse management, unlike other functional divisions within a business, requires total coordination with all operations and insights inside the value chain to work well. It comprises the ideas and methods involved in running a warehouse's day-to-day operations. This involves obtaining and managing warehouse space, organizing personnel, managing inventory, and fulfilling orders at a top standard.
How to tell if your warehouse is succeeding
Regardless of the fact that numerous criteria indicate good warehouse management, each company has its own goals. The following are the most essential measures for evaluating the performance of your company's warehouse management.
- Inventory Turnover: Turnover is a metric that illustrates how often you have no inventory in a given year. The greater the value of this indicator, the better it is for your business.
- Accuracy: Inventory accuracy is a metric that displays the relationship between the amount of items you actually have and what the warehouse management software claims you have. Inventory accuracy should be 100 percent, which is attainable with the assistance of automated warehousing and business intelligence systems.
- Demand Projection: This indicator is critical in uncertain times since it predicts how much merchandise you will sell based on real-time and previous data. The only way to obtain this actionable knowledge is through warehouse management solutions driven by artificial intelligence (AI).
- Order Cycle Time: This is the time required starting from the customer's order to it being fulfilled. Order cycle time is one of the most crucial indicators of warehouse management as warehousing can take extended lengths of time if not managed properly and promptly. Thus, trimming down the order cycle time is a clear indicator that your warehouse management is benefitting your business.
How does Business Intelligence align with Warehouse Management?
Maintaining high warehouse success metrics would be very tough and demanding without business information and performance management systems. In a word, they are BI tools that process data, visualize it, analyze it, report on it, and recommend solutions with the ultimate objective of optimizing and enhancing the warehouse management process. Hence, business intelligence management involves the practice of managing your warehouse via the use of intelligence data and AI-driven warehouse management software.
Companies are drawn to supply chain BI tools because of their splendid ability to make sense of the seemingly infinite amounts of information that has become available as a result of the continued acceptance of warehousing technology solutions like the warehouse management systems (WMS) and supply chain execution systems. While having access to data is important, being able to identify, interpret, and then use that information to make proactive decisions that increase supply chain efficiency is even more important.
Why use Business Intelligence for your Warehouse Management?
Using a business intelligence and analytics system in your data warehousing may provide the following benefits in addition to a greater possibility of reaching good Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
- Central access: Accessibility to all data is centralized. A data array is meaningless unless it is categorized and saved in a single database. Data takes on new significance with business intelligence since it is stored, categorized, and evaluated in a single system according to certain specifications.
- Real-time analysis: Most of the success indicators highlighted would be easier to attain if you took advantage of data analysis opportunities, which are an essential component of any business intelligence system. For example, you may determine that a high return rate is related to shipment delays or client expectations after examining previous purchases. Business intelligence analyses the data flow from your business and helps you make good decisions, consistently.
- Increased workforce efficiency: Proper warehouse management helps your staff's job easier since they always know where the needed product is and how it can be packed, picked up, and delivered to the client. This planning is streamlined and sent out easily with the help of business intelligence.
- Modernization of technology: It may be tough to imagine, but some businesses still operate their warehouse and storage manually. They may experience shortages, theft, product deterioration, and transportation delays. Improving your data analysis process with a Business Intelligence solution brings up a whole range of technology options for data collection, analytics, insight collection, prediction, and improvement.
With the aid of business intelligence tools, coordinating and managing your warehouse gets easier and more successful. The value of business intelligence may be best described by the word "insight." Companies are making real-time strategic improvements to transport and logistics operations by obtaining visibility into the internal workings of the supply chains through specific, comprehensive, and actionable exception-based information. As a result, warehouse efficiency, cost reductions, and operational improvements have increased.
There are several tools for you to look at and get started with Business Intelligence and Warehouse management: Nuport is one of them. With its top-end AI and Machine learning capabilities, Management systems and Analytical prowess, your warehouse management is sure to reap the benefits of Business Intelligence even before you take notice. Why wait? Schedule a demo today!