Feb 22 2017

Shipping essentials: The Packing Station

Resources within a business are often stretched to maximum capacity when a business expands, leaving decision makers with the ultimatum to determine which division would yield the greatest return from a financial injection. Although increasing the labour force or purchasing higher capacity machinery would bring for a cost saving, inward innovation is deemed as an effective practice for growing businesses.

Some may argue, surely if a business’ bottom line shows a growing increase in sales, where has the need to improve current packing processes come from? After all, current assets have coped well with satisfying customer needs. While that may be true, it is essential to note that incremental changes not only streamlines the processes within the packing line, but equips the business to handle more orders efficiently.

Reviewing after sales feedback responses such as online reviews, is an initial step into understanding the root of customer complaints. This would essentially help the business identify areas that are failing to meet customer expectations.

Now let us take a quick look into more cost effective approaches that can help prepare the business to handle orders more effectively…

Reorganise

The essence of rearranging packing stations is to make a positive difference to the manner in which orders are compiled. Keeping regular used items closer to the assembly point for instance, saves time searching for packaging and provides indications as to when stock is below optimal levels.

Taking the time out to observe the current packing process within the warehouse can help you establish areas where value is not being added, and in the mean time identify and determine processes that can be shortened.

Logging timings and investigating how long it takes for orders to reach customers, would single out operations that need the most support. Don’t be afraid to utilise the experience and knowledge of the assembly team to provide an additional perspective with this decision. Such insight would offer foundation knowledge into what has been tried and tested in the past, and could potentially save time probing through years of feedback surveys.

Choice of packaging

The ideal warehouse strives to conserve space by keeping a good balance of merchandises flowing in and out as quickly and efficiently as possible. While the co-existence of human and automated processes have made the picking and packing processes become even more highly efficient, for a growing business simple substitutions from traditional packaging to crash lock or self sealing boxes can be just as efficient. This would save time assembling and reinforcing parcels.

Ranges such as these, have proven to increase mailing output by 30%, qualifying your business to offer a same day dispatch service. This minor change in packaging choice, will not only equip your business with the ability to process more orders within its existing capacity, but will essentially make your business a preferred choice amongst competitors.

Faster Dispatch process

Now that you have a slighter faster assembly line, dispatch needs to be equipped to manage all these orders efficiently and accurately.

By ordering packaging that fits the size of your product perfectly, the dispatch team no longer have to dedicate extra time padding up the parcels with void fillings. Instead, more time can be dedicated to performing quality checks on orders.

With discount savings on purchases of packaging from as little as three packs, growing businesses are not committed to storing bulk quantities of packaging. And with no minimum order spend and some pack sizes starting from just 25 boxes, neither are growing businesses obligated to ordering one type of packaging; thus equipping enterprises with the freedom to trial different packaging types.

In summary, when focusing on improving your business consider trialing options from the inside, this not only demonstrates to investors that you are keen about expanding your business, but by maximising your current resources and optimising existing processes proves that you are passionate about retaining cost and improving savings.