Need a warehouse management strategy? 8 steps you should consider

We've seen great and not-so-great warehouse deployment projects in our lifetime, understandably as these are complex projects. And of course we have our own suggestions for how a manufacturing company, or a distributor, should go about it. But we wanted to get a broader view of this topic, and so we posted a warehouse strategy question on LinkedIn.

We heard from several industry veterans, who shared with us their recommendations.  Here's a summary of these responses:
 

(For more details on each, visit the LinkedIn answer section.)

• What is your budget? Your budget will help define the length and breadth of your strategy.
• What's in your warehouse?
• How long is your supply chain?
• What terms are you offering clients? Think through your shipping and RMA process.
• What's the unthinkable that you can think of? Always have a contingency plan in place.
• Consider WAAS as an option: WAAS (Warehouse As A Service). If you store taxed or dutied goods at a licensed warehouse you pay import duties only when it leaves the third party US facility.
• Why do you need a warehouse? Is it to cross dock, is it to create hubs and spokes, is it to centralize storage?
• Actual operational layout of the warehouse plus what system you are going to use to manage the warehousing process.

If you are currently evaluating warehouse management systems or would like to talk to someone to support your warehouse strategy, download our whitepaper: How to Choose a WMS System?

For other industry resources on warehousing strategy visit these websites below:

Supply Chain Brain

Logistics World

Modern Materials Handling

Supply Chain Digest

Download our whitepaper on warehouse management systems evaluation process now.