Businesses today need objective data on everything in their warehouses to make critical business decisions. One sector that would greatly benefit from clear and coherent data flow is logistics. An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system can significantly improve efficiency and is a significant step toward digital transformation.
By easing the flow of data throughout a company's operations, an ERP system like SAP S/4 HANA Cloud helps avoid redundancies and conflicts across departments. Most ERP solution providers offer a logistics module that provides vital information, such as which products have arrived, and which customer orders have been placed and dispatched. The warehouse manager is constantly updated on an item's sales levels and availability.
Here are a few advantages ERP brings to logistics and warehouse management:
ERP systems can track how inventory moves in real time, ensuring that the number of items in stock is always correct. Warehouse managers can forecast product demand using historical data and analytics using an ERP system to prevent stockouts and overstocks and optimize inventories to meet demand. Automated reordering generates purchase or transfer orders when inventory levels approach specified thresholds.
ERP can track product batch and serial numbers, making tracking and recalling defective products easier. It can also optimize warehouse picking and packing by producing pick lists, prioritizing orders, and scanning barcodes–this reduces errors, picking time, and order accuracy.
An ERP system can help warehouse distribution organizations manage inventory levels, cut costs, improve productivity, and improve customer experience by keeping products in stock and processing orders swiftly and accurately.
Orders are tracked via an order management module from reception to delivery. This component of the ERP sends all orders placed by customers to the warehouse, distribution center, or retail shop and monitors their progress as they are prepared, fulfilled, and dispatched to the customer. The order management module prevents orders from getting lost and increases on-time delivery rates on time to keep customers happy while reducing unnecessary shipping costs. ERP can also handle any materials or items that have been returned for a refund or replacement.
The ERP warehouse module helps pickers know what items are in stock and where they are located. The module enables layout optimization of the warehouse, reducing the time and distance required for pickers to move between different locations. It also allows pickers to find the most efficient routes for moving around the facility; this can reduce the time it takes for pickers to find the right products, thus improving their productivity.
The module can support various picking techniques such as batch picking, wave picking, and zone picking, and some modules tell the staff the most efficient pick path. With an ERP, you can track the performance of pickers, providing insights into their productivity, accuracy, and efficiency. This information can be used to identify areas for improvement and to develop training programs that can help pickers work more effectively.
By having all customer data within a single system, businesses can reduce the need for data entry duplication and errors. Client and prospect information is stored in the customer relationship management (CRM) module, which gives businesses a holistic view of their customers, including communications such as the date and time of phone conversations, sales history, order information, and support requests. This can help organizations provide better customer service, manage leads and opportunities, and improve sales and marketing efforts.
As the system monitors prospect or customer communication, it can give insights on which consumers should be targeted for specific promotions or cross-sell possibilities. More powerful CRM modules may include customer segmentation (allowing for more focused marketing) and advanced contact management and reporting capabilities.
With ERP, everyone is linked and can access the critical information needed to execute their work effectively. An ERP system allows data to flow freely throughout all business divisions, allowing departments to better organize and manage resources.
To learn more about the right ERP solution for your unique challenges, reach out to the experts at NBS to schedule a consultation. Aside from ERP for wholesale distributors, we also focus on ERP for accounting firms and ERP for engineering firms.