Well-organized logistics are leaner, easier to cost-control, and can sometimes even be downsized. And they allow you to offer a better service to your customers.
Below you’ll find our tips for organizing your logistics to drive sales.
Before envisaging immediate changes, your first step is to analyse your existing set-up. Auditing the organization of your logistics processes will help you identify strengths and weaknesses: from restocking to transportation to deliveries, the management of your entire supply chain comes under scrutiny.
That way you’ll have a clearer idea of what needs to be improved first.
ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software helps you organize your logistics and also offers valuable pointers for your audit. ERP provides an interface with a company’s entire information system, covering areas such as sales and production as well as logistics.
All information is automatically updated in real time. All management operations are fully traceable. This is why ERP is so useful in an audit : it provides an overview of all your company’s operations and allows the source of each piece of information to be easily and quickly identified.
On-time delivery is a KPI of paramount importance! Your OTD rate determines quality of service in terms of your ability to meet your customers’ needs.
To calculate your OTD rate, you need to compare the number of products you have delivered over a pre-defined period against the total number of orders placed. This tells you:
This indicator gives you a clearer picture of your ability to fulfil orders over a defined period of time. It also helps with stock management by allowing you to measure the number of products supplied.
This is important for anticipating possible stock shortages, or for avoiding overstocking in relation to the number of orders.
Various KPIs help you determine your order picking efficiency:
Other logistics KPIs provide a more holistic view of your efficiency, such as:
Transport and logistics are closely linked, so you will also need to monitor KPIs such as average duration of operations, i.e. the average time required to bring products to the dock, load or unload them, and deliver them.
An audit reveals the strengths and weaknesses of the management of your logistics flows. Below we give seven tips for improving the way you organize your logistics.
Stored products can vary in size and quantity. It isn’t suitable, therefore, to allocate the same storage space to each type of product. Similarly, storage racking will benefit from being adapted to the products stored there - and their packaging.
By using modular racking systems, you can optimize your use of space and increase efficiency.
A colour code system makes employees’ work easier, especially in large warehouses. If each zone is assigned a colour, they can quickly locate it and save time.
The advantage of colour coding is that it's visual, easy to implement and easily understood by everyone, but other similar solutions are possible too, depending on your habits or the layout of your warehouse, e.g. symbols, numbers etc.
The most popular products are best stored near the order picking area. Again, this is a simple way to save time and be more responsive: it makes it operators’work easier and reduces the distancebetween the storage and order picking zones.
This helps you improve the movement of goods and increases the number of picks per hour.
Increasing height is a convenient way of storing more products on the same surface area. A word of warning, however: products must be stored at a suitable height.
Here again, it’s a question of common sense: the more popular a product is, the easier it must be for operators to access - and increase their productivity.
Products that are less in demand may be stored in a higher slot, as the need to access them is less frequent.
Installer un système d’étiquetage avec la technologie RFID représente un investissement considérable, mais qui sera vite rentabilisé.
Installing a labelling system with RFID technology is a considerable investment, but it pays off quickly.
Thanks to its track and trace function, this technology has many advantages:
All of which allow you to increase the number of orders processed per day...
There are benefits across the whole supply chain too, with improved storage, order picking and management.
Equipment can clutter up space, cause accidents and slow down the entire supply chain if not left in the correct place. That’s why you should designate special zones to store equipment when it’s not in use.
The ability of your teams to comply with your instructions is crucial for well-organized logistics.
Getting your teams involved in change means better management of change: when you’re implementing a new technology to optimize your logistics, for example, your operators will more readily appropriate the new solution if they’re involved in its construction.
Other employees will then be more likely to adopt the changes in turn.
To improve your communication:
Good management of logistics directly affects sales. Conducting an audit can help you identify all the weak points in your logistics procedures.
Obviously the KPIs listed here must be monitored on an ongoing basis, and not only considered at the time of the audit.
That way you’ll know if your efforts are paying off and what points need to be improved. By following the advice in this article, you’ll better organize your logistics and make more sales as a consequence.
To fine-tune your logistics, you should consider installing a Warehouse Management System (WMS).