As ecommerce becomes more and more of a backbone in the retail sector, warehouse fulfillment centers are becoming increasingly important. Moreover, establishing a warehouse or fulfillment center for an ecommerce company doesn't require mastery in logistics. However, it does demand a bit of planning for the business to run smoothly.

The trick is to see a broader picture and take a long-term view, gear up and plan now to ensure success later. Here is a step-by-step guideline to start a warehouse fulfillment center. That is to say, it can help you have an optimal order delivery system. Also, it will identify points that need to be handled to ease inventory and fulfillment bottlenecks.

Guide to Setup a Warehouse Fulfillment Center to Command Growth

Let’s look at the steps to setup a warehouse fulfillment center for growing your business.

Step 1: Evaluate the Space Required in the Warehouse

Determine the space needed for carrying the inventory. Besides calculating the storage space, evaluate the space required for materials and personnel movement and other warehouse operations.

Step 2: Compile a List of Equipment Required

Equipment for a fulfillment center depending on the product, volume, and business module. For example, there are four kinds of warehouse equipment that fulfills the goal of maximizing the space, increasing efficiency, and refining visibility:

• Storage equipment
• Packing & Shipping equipment
• Barcoding tools
• Material handling equipment

Step 3: Develop Methods for Automating Recurring Operations

Automation improves efficiency by saving time and relieves stress. Thus, the best automation is based on small investments in single-task equipment. In addition, ROI can be incrementally enhanced by investing in this form of equipment from the onset.

Step 4: Pick Routes for Optimization

A superior warehouse management software is ideal for selecting optimized pick paths for a warehouse. Likewise, choose the one that works best for your facility. The different order picking methods are batch picking, wave picking, and zone picking.

Step 5: Set Warehouse Protocols & Guidelines

Establish policies, guidelines for the warehouse regarding security, safety procedures, working protocols, workflow, quality control, and order accuracy. Further, put these guidelines at the correct places and advertise them for proper implementation.

Step 6: Personnel Training

Train the employees to impart skills to enable them to work swiftly and efficiently. Since proper training reaps benefits in the long run, fewer mistakes and a safe work environment can be easily achieved.

Step 7: Choosing the Correct Software

Ecommerce companies setting up their warehouse fulfillment center should carefully select a warehouse management software. In other words, it should align with the needs of their company strategies. A dedicated software should monitor inventory management. Thus, it should provide appropriate instruments for world-class inventory accuracy.

Step 8: Interlink Systems

Integrating warehouse management software with shopping cart software, accounting systems, ordering, and shipping scheduling software enables different business systems. As a result, it greatly helps to exchange data. Moreover, this widens the range of cost-cutting opportunities, increases performance, and minimizes errors.

Step 9: Lay Down KPIs

KPIs help locate bottlenecks, schedule warehouse operations, and assess end-user satisfaction. Additionally, defining KPIs and metrics helps companies to ensure that the warehouse fulfillment center is set up optimally.

Step 10: Commitment & Insightful of Mistakes

To run a successful fulfillment center requires time, dedication to understand, drive and grow. And, keep in mind the lessons learned from the mistakes made by you as well by others.

Takeaway

Fulfillment is a vital part of the e-commerce riddle. The above-discussed steps will make the process of setting up a fulfillment center easy and bring a significant variance to the crux. Try the
warehouse fulfillment center facility of Spectra Integration to save time, money and simultaneously meet the client’s needs within the schedules.