Supply Chain Management is an essential component of any business that sells goods or services. While the primary focus of warehousing is storage, the main aim of logistics is to ensure proper transportation is available for the respective goods or services. Logistics encompasses both storage and distribution of warehouse products. Both warehousing and logistics are part of Supply Chain Management (SCM) and require continuous attention.
Warehousing as a Service
Every big warehousing company in India is designed to provide safe storage and a central location for all commodities to be kept in one place. Both logistics and warehousing are incomplete without each other. Warehousing becomes available as a service for clients. It has become very important in today’s times when several clients and customers depend on ecommerce for their goods supplies.
Businesses with SCM operations ensure safe storage and delivery while also having the technical knowledge to satisfy end-to-end customer requirements when logistics and warehouses work in a synchronized fashion. These end-to-end standards cover all aspects of businesses, from verifying inventory to delivering items.
Logistics Keeps Track of Goods in Warehouses
Logistics take care of the internal and external movement of goods from warehouses, including both finished and unfinished items. The warehousing manager must also account for the internal movement of goods. Establishments such as hospitals and hotels purchase raw materials daily, with requirements differing from one department to another.
The warehouse is a business structure for storing, receiving, and distributing commodities. A warehousing manager is in charge of unloading, order picking, receiving, and storing finished items.
What Role Does Logistics Play in Supply Chain Management?
Logistics is regarded as a subset of SCM. It is a critical section of SCM that deals with the many modes of transportation responsible for inventory movement. As mentioned before, services and goods transported to different clients are handled by the logistics department. Even records and papers that trace an item’s journey until it gets to the client fall under logistics. The best companies can provide logistics for every corner of India.
Besides transport, material management, production, delivery, and product and inventory planning are also part of the supply chain. Packing and stock management are responsible for sending goods on time and ensuring their safety. All the above activities are intertwined together to make SCM efficient and flexible.
How Warehousing Fits into SCM
- Transporting Through Logistics– The buyer almost never receives things directly from the manufacturer. Efficient transportation, even though it is the most important part of logistics that allows movement of goods from the supplier to the buyer, must collect goods from the warehouse. Goods must be moved from their point of manufacture to their eventual destination. Enterprises can reduce expenditures on logistics by consolidating modes of transportation, which is especially essential for companies that move goods across short distances.
- Compliance with Quality Assurance Procedures– All products held within central warehouses need to have their exact sizes, weights, configurations, and numbers identified and noted down. It is the role of the manager of a central warehouse to ensure that right parts arrive at the right time and in the right place. Container or product verification procedures have become critical over time, with businesses and their competitors expanding at rapid pace. Even if these quality assurance procedures seem complicated, they’re necessary for every business. Visual verification checks and reading codes from products or containers are the traditional quality control techniques.
- Getting the Best Product Quality– Every consumer expects to receive the best product possible.
Businesses are recognized for producing products in batches, and this work is done at contracted facilities. It is not just important for the product to be of good quality when it leaves the warehouse, but also when it reaches the consumer. As consumers often request distinct commodities in various quantities while giving orders online, the time taken for products to roll out is reduced through efficient warehouse storage techniques.
- Smooth Movement of Goods– Warehouses make sure that the flow of goods is as smooth as possible, which is critical during seasonal swings.
- Protection Against Unforeseen Events– Issues such as suppliers running out of stock, strikes, and shipping delays are all too common. Raw material delivery delays may cause the production process to come to a standstill. In a distribution warehouse, similar unforeseen events may occur. Damage will have an adverse impact on the efficiency of order fulfillment.
Entry of Automation into Warehousing
Coronavirus alerted businesses to a variety of weaknesses in their supply networks. Businesses in practically every sector and vertical and sector have been damaged by supply chain interruptions.
The main issue of businesses was meeting demand, which will continue to be efficiently met by automation.
Logistics and warehousing are essential for SCM to be smooth. The size of operations may also create the need for automation.
