Systematic Appplication and benefits of having accurate weights and dimensions in your warehouse management

Although many businesses are aware of the theoretical advantages of including exact weights and measures (cubic dimensions) for each SKU in their warehouse management systems, in practise this is often not done. Businesses will have a hard time providing the rudimentary information required for slotting, improved capacity planning, and, if necessary, full truck or LTL planning. They may end up paying more for shipping, handling, and other fees, including on the small parcel side.

We refer to accurate cubic and weight measurements using technology, as opposed to manual measurements or guesses, when we talk about having SKU dimensions of all your inventory. In order to effectively manage your operations, dimensioning is a crucial foundational step.

A cubing and weighing or dimensioning system is required for businesses to determine SKU sizes. Several variants of these systems are commercially available, including those with wheels for portability and those with a huge bed scanner that may be positioned beside moving conveyors.

Simple systems use scanning technology to measure and weigh products and relay that data to a warehouse management or business shipping platform. The product master file can be updated in two ways: in a batch, or in real time, over the internet.

Merits of Inventory Dimensioning:

There are eight significant merits of having weights and measurements for warehouse inventory:

1)Key to slotting:

In some instances, dimensioning makes the slotting process simpler and more systematic. If the cubic measurements and dimensions of a storage place are known, the slotting system can offer the most advantageous location.

2)Enhanced Accuracy of Shipping Costs:

A precise set of weights ahead of time is always preferable to a rough estimate. If you don't have this data, you might not be able to tell if you're overcharging or undercharging your consumers until it's too late. If you can avoid making those costly mistakes by hand, your ancillary costs will go down.

3)Future capacity planning:

Whether you're restructuring your existing space or planning a move to a new site, dimensional inventory considerably aids future warehouse capacity planning. Determining the number of pick and bulk sites required is one of the more difficult aspects of designing a new plant. The decisions must be based on the average and peak inventory based on cubic measures in order to be correct. In addition, having weights and dimensions allows you to select the required pallet racks.

4)Cartonization:

Rather than having workers manually select the appropriate box size, your WMS can automate this process by using cartonization functions at packing stations. This will eliminate the need for unnecessary dunnage and save time spent experimenting with alternative box sizes. If several things can be packed into one carton, a cartonization function can do the math for you.

5)Planning for conveyors and other forms of automation:

Conveyor and other forms of automation have different design goals depending on the size and weight of the goods to be moved. If this isn't on hand, finalizing the design and engineering will take a lot longer.

6)Logistics Robotics-Using Print-and-Apply Forms:

For specialized tasks, there are high-throughput print-and-apply shipping systems that can scan, weigh, measure, and cube cartons before printing and applying shipping labels.

7)Logistics preparation for truck transport:

Knowing the cube and dimensions of your pallets will help you get them off the ground faster either transporting a full truckload or trying to cube them out.

8)Containment of Poor Quality:

Weight-based quality control can be implemented for both incoming and outgoing shipments in some businesses. When it comes to receiving and inspecting, this can speed up the time spent on visual checks upon arrival. Specifically, it may indicate mis shipments going outbound.

Systematic Application of Dimensioning :

The steps of incorporating dimensioning into your DC are as follows:

1)Choose and purchase a measuring system.

2)Conceive a strategy for quantifying each product in the catalog. This could take a few weeks or months to complete at some companies. Some producers claim that one worker and a transportable equipment mounted on a cart can measure one hundred goods each hour.

3)New standards for sizing the product. Any new products added to the lineup should have their dimensions recorded either immediately upon arrival or as soon as possible after they are added to the product master file.

Conclusion:

While the procedure itself is straightforward, the initial setup time can be lengthy. Having precise SKU measurements for all of your inventory items is financially and logistically sound for controlling capacity, automating processes, and maximizing storage space.