Wisdom for Warehousing | The Optimal Role of Warehousing in Supply Chains and Business

The Plight of the Warehouse Manager

Under the influence of e-commerce, supply chain collaboration, globalization, quick response, and just-in-time, warehouses today are being asked to (1) execute more, smaller transactions, (2) handle and store more items (3) provide more product and service customization, (4) offer more value-added services, (5) process more returns, (6) serve more channels, (7) process a greater variety of order types, (8) receive and ship more international orders, and (9) provide higher levels of safety and security for people and property. At the same time warehouses today have (1) less time to process an order, (2) less margin for error, (3) less young, skilled, English speaking personnel, (4) under-developed systems capability, and (5) reticence to automate despite all the publicity surrounding warehouse automation. I call this rock and a hard place scenario the plight of the warehouse manager. Never has the warehouse been asked to do so much and at the same time been so strapped for resources at the same time.

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