How to manage food warehouse effectively

19/04/2023

Short shelf life, requirements of storage, easy to stamping, broken… which make food storage become really difficult. So how to store food storage appropriately?

The importance of food warehouse management

Warehouse management is one of the important factors that help the business always take place smoothly. If you know the exact amount of inventory, you will be able to meet the needs of goods for customers, avoiding the risk of “sold out” easily.

In food processing enterprises or restaurants, storage is the most important because vegetables, meat, seafood… are very easy to fail. There are different types of storage requirements, transportation is also more difficult than other types of goods. Therefore, if the warehouse management is not scientific, the business will face many problems:

Easy to lose goods
Cost of storage, cost damage of raw materials
Expensive purchase cost
Reduce revenue, reduce profits
Do not optimize capital efficiency

Standard process of food warehouse management

Inbound management

Receive and check the warehousing paper.
Check the quantity and quality of goods before warehousing.
When warehousing must be classified in lots, date of manufacture, expiry date…

Inventory management

Based on the shelf life, arrange goods in the batch so that it will be convenient for the inventory.
Using warehouse management software, importing food information, establishing an expired warning function to promptly handle, avoiding the situation of overdue food throwing waste. Arranging goods neatly, carefully, scientifically because food items are easy to damage such as vegetables, tubers, fruits, …
Make a detailed warehouse diagram of the location of the shelves.
Comply with the regulations in the warehouse on fire prevention and fighting when saving.
Make sure the goods are stored in the warehouse at the right temperature, can partition the temperature for ease of management.

Outbound management

Receive and check the export votes when
Processed or dead goods such as food and drinks must always be based on quantitative to create warehousing documents based on the principle of FIFO or FEFO

Counting, reporting, statistics

Periodic warehouse check as prescribed to compare actual quantities with books
After checking, proceeding to make a record of the warehouse
Statistics of goods and report to business owners. Including reports on import and export of reserve supplies and inventory synthesis

How to effectively manage food warehouse

Establishment of warehouse easy to observe and science

Food warehouse is similar to many other warehouses about the risk of inventory process. The cause stems from the difficult space to observe, making employees easily confused. Therefore, it is advisable to optimize the warehouse space, set up locations for food to be easy to observe, convenient for the process of export, import, inventory and delivery of goods. From there, it will reduce the losses and damage not worth it.

Food products are easily damaged and have short shelf life. Therefore, it is necessary to arrange science to easily find, transport, import and export warehouses to save time and effort. Avoid the situation of messy goods or in the hidden corner. Make warehouse staff forget, cause waste. Some arrangements such as:

Food is used in large quantities, so it is located near the door.
Paste the goods guiding board at the warehouse door for easy identification and search.
Clearly subdivision and warehouse diagrams, labels to easily observe and manage warehouse.

Apply FIFO rules

Unlike other items, first in – first out is almost mandatory for goods as food. Easy to understand because food is often broken quickly, has short shelf life, decreases over time, so using FIFO is to make the most of the value of food.

Use barcodes to manage

Save the barcode of each product item will save time searching. Management on computers is also easier when digitizing items in the warehouse.

Optimal inventory

Inventory is too large and too long will seriously affect the capital and revenue of the business. Therefore, businesses need to set optimal inventory norms. This means that the minimum and maximum inventory for each product, the number of items must not be over the minimum and not exceed the maximum level. From there, in the process of food warehouse management, you will promptly handle incidents and avoid exaggerated inventories.

Regular counting

For all items, warehouse inspection is a day to be done every day and updated fully and accurately. Food items are no exception, in addition to inventory, it must be carefully considered to be used or not. Regular testing will help the manager quickly have an additional plan or use.

Strictly controlling the process of importing and exporting food goods to avoid loss of goods also grasped any damaged goods. The warehouse should be performed every 6 months to confirm the number and quality of food. Some forms of inventory:

Actual count: check all goods in the warehouse at the same time. Usually only perform 1 time/year.
count: regularly check the goods on the spot during the year. It means that any goods, then compare the number of books with reality.
Cycle count: perform each quarter, month, week or every day. High -value goods are more invented.

Use warehouse management software

Application of software to warehouse management is the optimal measure, helping to solve most of the operations in the warehouse. Today, the management software has functions such as: Goods portfolio management, employee management, display basic information about goods such as manufacturing date, expiry date, import – export of the day… help managers easily capture the warehouse.

Understanding the need to find effective warehouse management solutions, TSL is confident to be a great choice with the Blue Yonder smart warehouse management system (BY WMS). Using the smart and comprehensive warehouse management system can help businesses maintain a smooth warehouse and eliminate the burdens of challenges.

In the world, the trend of food enterprises is investing in new processes and technologies such as helping to support the traceability of products and speed up the response during the increasing product recovery period. .

In addition, with the smart and effective warehouse management system, food warehouse administrators will be able to control and monitor inventory in real time. From recording changes in inventory to predicting inventory demand, such automatic solutions allows businesses to better schedule and carry out warehouse activities easily, from the time Goods into the warehouse until it is transported out.

Blue Yonder Warehouse Management System (BY WMS) is a realtime warehouse management solution, based on comprehensive Saas. The solution has cleverly handled interruptions in the supply chain, creating competitive advantages for businesses.

By WMS is applied technology to optimize tasks, ensuring every aspect of the movement of the goods is done in the best way. This is a comprehensive solution, ready for mobile devices for distribution and management of inventory including labor management, yard management, domestic operation, inventory management, single handling goods, outside activities, logistics activities of third parties and business analysis.

Contact TSL immediately for more free service and demo advice!