How to Use Labeling to Keep the Warehouse Efficient

There is nothing worse than having a warehouse of inventory in complete disarray. When your inventory rooms are unorganized, there’s a very good chance that items go missing, shipments aren’t dropped off in the right place and customers aren’t getting what they want on time. A well-run warehouse is imperative to the success of any business. There are lots of different ways to make a warehouse more efficient, including hiring more staff, utilizing a larger space and having a concrete set-up and clean-up systems. However, even with all of these items incorporated, there is one component that cannot be overlooked: labeling. Labeling is the key when it comes time for workers to know what is what and where it needs to go. If you need some ideas to help your warehouse run like a well-oiled machine, consider the following suggestions on how to use labeling to keep the warehouse efficient.

Loading/Unloading Labels

The very first problem you’ll have with a warehouse that isn’t labeled, is trying to direct loaders and unloaders to the right area. You’re in for a lot of confusion if you’ve got some boxes coming into the wrong dock, and often you’ll have customers with the wrong packages by default. Labeling every door and dock is the first step to an organized warehouse. As long as you know what’s coming and what is going, the rest can be figured out amongst your team.

Overhead Labeling for Shipments

  Every company is working with different products and materials, but they will all have the same success if they have overhead labeling in their warehouse. Regardless of what labels you use, having overhead prints that clearly define what should go where makes it easier for workers to organize shipments. For example, your warehouse might have different “Showroom #1”, “Winter Collection”, “Metals” or even “Top Sellers” and “High Volume” labels, for items that are coming and going the most often. If you want to make it even easier for workers, have the barcodes also read what are the item needs to fall under so they can quickly find its proper place.

Cycle Counts

A lot of businesses are required to perform cycle counts throughout the year, to ensure that their inventory numbers are correct. Cycle counting allows a company to count the number of items in a grouping without having to scan every item individually, which can save a lot of time. In this way, small groups of inventory are counted throughout the year, in order to ensure that the larger annual inventory counts will be completed quickly and without discrepancies. To have a successful cycle count, expert labeling is necessary to organize the products and to group them into proper units to be scanned. Proper labeling is necessary to add up the number of units in each group and to double check the inventory as well. Labeling makes cycle counting much easier, and avoids the time-consuming option of counting by hand. Labeling for cycle counting helps to keep warehouses organized and up to date throughout the year, so it’s a great idea to incorporate this labeling system into your warehouses.

Labeling Machinery and Tools

Aside from disorganized inventory, a warehouse can also become cluttered and inefficient when machinery and tools have no place. Labeling can easily help with this kind of problem, simply by having signs and proper labeling to educate workers about where machinery should be stored. For example, tools should have group labeling to keep storage organized, and you may even provide labeling to inform workers about how and when to use specific tools. Larger labels might be made for overhangs, to indicate where forklifts and other large machinery should be taken at the end of the day.

Safety with Labeling

Labeling your warehouse is important, because without organization of all of your tools, your inventory can quickly end up in disarray. Not only that, but without labels for tools and machinery, your warehouse could become a possible safety hazard.

Conclusion

Businesses that use warehouses to store their inventory need to ensure that everything runs efficiently and effectively. To do this, one of the tools that can help include intelligent labeling. Labeling will not only help to keep things where they should be, but this can also help your workers to find items quicker, organize in a more efficient manner and educate your team on how to use warehouse items properly.