• Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Supplier Directory
  • SCB YouTube
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • Logout
  • My Profile
  • LOGISTICS
    • Air Cargo
    • All Logistics
    • Express/Small Shipments
    • Facility Location Planning
    • Freight Forwarding/Customs Brokerage
    • Global Gateways
    • Global Logistics
    • Last Mile Delivery
    • Logistics Outsourcing
    • LTL/Truckload Services
    • Ocean Transportation
    • Rail & Intermodal
    • Reverse Logistics
    • Service Parts Management
    • Transportation & Distribution
  • TECHNOLOGY
    • All Technology
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Cloud & On-Demand Systems
    • Data Management (Big Data/IoT/Blockchain)
    • ERP & Enterprise Systems
    • Forecasting & Demand Planning
    • Global Trade Management
    • Inventory Planning/ Optimization
    • Product Lifecycle Management
    • Sales & Operations Planning
    • SC Finance & Revenue Management
    • SC Planning & Optimization
    • Sourcing/Procurement/SRM
    • Supply Chain Visibility
    • Transportation Management
  • GENERAL SCM
    • Business Strategy Alignment
    • Education & Professional Development
    • Global Supply Chain Management
    • Global Trade & Economics
    • HR & Labor Management
    • Quality & Metrics
    • Regulation & Compliance
    • SC Security & Risk Mgmt
    • Supply Chains in Crisis
    • Sustainability & Corporate Social Responsibility
  • WAREHOUSING
    • All Warehouse Services
    • Conveyors & Sortation
    • Lift Trucks & AGVs
    • Order Fulfillment
    • Packaging
    • RFID, Barcode, Mobility & Voice
    • Robotics
    • Warehouse Management Systems
  • INDUSTRIES
    • Aerospace & Defense
    • Apparel
    • Automotive
    • Chemicals & Energy
    • Consumer Packaged Goods
    • E-Commerce/Omni-Channel
    • Food & Beverage
    • Healthcare
    • High-Tech/Electronics
    • Industrial Manufacturing
    • Pharmaceutical/Biotech
    • Retail
  • THINK TANK
  • WEBINARS
    • On-Demand Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
  • PODCASTS
  • VIDEOS
  • WHITEPAPERS
Home » Blogs » Think Tank » Five Ways Your Warehouse Will Benefit From a Supply-Chain Audit

Think Tank
Think Tank RSS FeedRSS

Five Ways Your Warehouse Will Benefit From a Supply-Chain Audit

Five Ways Your Warehouse Will Benefit From a Supply-Chain Audit
Source: Bloomberg
December 10, 2019
Mike Hachtman, SCB Contributor

From grand-scale, end-to-end supply-chain inspections to the examination of discrete warehouses tasks, audits can provide vital data for achieving multiple objectives.

Audits should be a central element in any operation that thrives on efficiency, such as warehouses or supply chains. A successful audit highlights opportunities for cost control and risk mitigation while driving compliance and progress. It provides visibility and operational business intelligence.

Audits aren’t always simple to conduct, and they don’t necessarily paint a pretty picture. But they can yield multiple benefits, such as:

  • Providing precision. Warehouses and distribution centers, especially in today’s environment of rapid fulfillment, can’t survive with subpar error rates. Precision isn’t an option, it’s a necessity. Audits can identify weak links in the fulfillment process.
  • Measuring quality control. Beyond the walls of your own facility, audits that extend both upstream and downstream can place a focus on quality measures, to ensure that your entire supply chain is operating efficiently and locating breakdowns at micro levels for macro impact.
  • Reducing supply-chain risk. Maintaining accurate assessments of suppliers and partners allows you to anticipate any weaknesses ahead. Identifying potential breakdowns before they happen lets you mitigate their impact by having contingency plans in place.
  • Identifying hazardous or unethical sourcing. As supply chains evolve toward net-neutral or net-positive impacts on the environment, audits can indicate where efforts are needed to enhance sustainability initiatives. It’s often said that you can’t fix what you can’t measure. Audits can reveal the progress of your facility or supply chain toward sustainability goals.
  • Identifying natural or geopolitical risks. On the surface, trade wars and natural disasters might not have much in common, but they both have significant impacts on supply chains. Auditing your supply chain can provide a degree of clarity and anticipation of commonly unforeseen or unpredictable events.

From operational perspectives to sustainability objectives, an audit process reveals existing and potential weaknesses within your own facility, as well as in external operations that influence your business. But there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. In order for an audit to succeed, you must determine exactly what you’re auditing and what you’re aiming to accomplish.

Audits can vary greatly in scale, ranging from a single department within one facility to suppliers and partners along every point of the supply chain. This is where clarifying objectives becomes paramount. An audit doesn’t necessarily have to be a grandiose project. Smaller, department-level audits can have an outsized effect on operational processes. They can even highlight the need for improvements in commonly overlooked areas.

Take pallet management. Examination of the pallet flow throughout your operation frequently identifies areas in need of development. Such an inspection might help improve strategies for load, racking and automation performance, optimizing your own facility while generating downstream benefits to clients and buyers. A pallet-management audit can also identify opportunities to increase revenue from the sale of surplus pallets which are no longer needed in your operation.

The task of performing an audit shouldn’t be underestimated. A large-scale effort can be costly and complex. On the other hand, smaller-scale audits, while often more manageable, can’t deliver holistic visibility, but can still uncover opportunities for operational efficiencies.

Furthermore, it’s vital to understand what to take from an audit, and how to apply the data from it. Audits can reveal both systemic and one-off issues, and it’s important to determine which is which. Audit data might be used for simple solutions to one-off problems, or to determine the next steps in more complex situations.

In either case, a warehouse or supply-chain audit puts your suppliers and processes under scrutiny, and can provide real-time data and process documentation essential to improving efficiency and productivity. It might not be an enjoyable undertaking, but it has tangible benefits.

Mike Hachtman is CEO of Relogistics.

Supply Chain Visibility Quality & Metrics All Warehouse Services Warehouse Management Systems

RELATED CONTENT

RELATED VIDEOS

Wake up to live
“Supply Chains in Crisis”
updates and the latest Supply Chain News!

Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter

Timely, incisive articles delivered directly to your inbox.

Popular Stories

  • INTERIOR OF A CHICKEN FARM, WITH WHITE CHICKENS AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE

    Worst Avian Flu in U.S. History Is Hitting Poultry

    Food & Beverage
  • TWO FINGERS MANIPULATE WOODEN LETTER BLOCKS TO TURN FROM SHOWING THE WORD RECOVERY TO RESILIENCE

    Five Challenges to Supply Chain Resilience in 2023

    Supply Chain Visibility
  • A PERSON HOLDS UP A TABLET COMPUTER IN A WAREHOUSE, SUPER-IMPOSED BY A GRAPHIC SHOWING A COMPLEX WEB OF SUPPLY CHAIN ELEMENTS

    Three Post-Pandemic Actions for Repairing Global Supply Chains

    Data Management (Big Data/IoT/Blockchain)
  • A MAN IN A SUIT SHAKES HANDS WITH A WOMAN IN A HARD HAT, NEXT TO A STACK OF CONTAINERS

    Three Procurement Technology Evolutions for 2023

    Sourcing/Procurement/SRM
  • The blank stare of a child's eye who is standing behind what appears to be a wooden frame

    The Alarming Continued Rise of Modern Slavery in Supply Chains: How Procurement Can Help Reverse the Trend

    Sourcing/Procurement/SRM

Digital Edition

Scb nov 2022 sm

2022 Supply Chain Innovator of the Year

VIEW THE LATEST ISSUE

Case Studies

  • New Revenue for Cloud-Based TMS that Embeds Orderful’s Modern EDI Platform

  • Convenience Store Client Maximizes Profit and Improves Customer Service

  • A Digitally Native Footwear Brand Finds Rapid Fulfillment

  • Expanding Apparel Brand Scales Seamlessly with E-Commerce Technology

  • How a Global LSP Scaled its Security Program and Won More Business

Visit Our Sponsors

Orderful Yang Ming Alithya
Barcoding Blue Yonder BNSF Logistics
CoEnterprise Data Capture Deposco
E2open GAINSystems Generix
Geodis GEP GreyOrange
Here Honeywell Intelligrated IFM
Infor Inmar Keelvar
Kinaxis Korber Lean Solutions Group 2H
Liberty SBF Locus Robotics Logility
LogistiVIEW Lucas Systems MCA Connect
MPO Nvidia Old Dominion
OpenText ORTEC Overhaul
Parsyl PMMI QIMA
Redwood Logistics Ryder E-commerce by Whiplash Saddle Creek Logistics
Schneider Dedicated Setlog Holding AG Ship4WD
Shipwell Tecsys TGW Systems
Thomson Reuters Tive Trailer Bridge
Vecna Robotics Verity
Verusen
  • More From SCB
    • Featured Content
    • Video Library
    • Think Tank Blog
    • SupplyChainBrain Podcast
    • Whitepapers
    • On-Demand Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
  • Digital Offerings
    • Digital Issue
    • Subscribe
    • Manage Your Subscription
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Events Calendar
    • SCB's Great Supply Chain Partners
    • Supplier Directory
    • Case Study Showcase
    • Supply Chain Innovation Awards
    • 100 Great Partners Form
  • SCB Corporate
    • Advertise on SCB.COM
    • About Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact Us
    • Data Sharing Opt-Out

All content copyright ©2023 Keller International Publishing Corp All rights reserved. No reproduction, transmission or display is permitted without the written permissions of Keller International Publishing Corp

Design, CMS, Hosting & Web Development :: ePublishing