How Warehouse Services Provided By Warehousing Companies Can Help Your Business?

Warehousing Companies

A warehouse is a place for storage of goods. Most companies have their own warehouses, where they store the goods they manufacture. A recent trend in warehousing has been the emergence of 3pl Companies. These third party logistics companies would have their own warehouses where they can store and manage goods of other organizations. For a business, instead of investing money to build and maintain a warehouse, outsourcing presents a more cost-effective option. They outsource their services to warehousing companies who are professional organizations that are experienced in managing warehouses.

The Top Warehousing Companies in India have well-equipped and spacious warehouses, where they store goods belonging to different companies. They handle all the warehousing work on behalf of the client. The services provided by these warehousing companies can help a business carry out its logistics operations in a more effective way. Let us examine what kind of services these companies provide.

Warehouse services

Warehousing Companies in India provide the entire gamut of services needed by a business for its logistics operations. Broadly these services can be classified under three heads namely – inbound logistics services, warehouse storage, and outbound logistics services. 

1) Inbound logistics services

These services involve handling of goods as received from the client’s factory. It involves the following activities:

·         Receipt of goods from the client’s manufacturing unit. The goods may be picked up from the client’s site by the warehousing company and transported to their warehouse.

·         On receipt of the goods, they are unloaded, verified, and placed on to a pallet to be moved into the warehouse.

·         On receipt, the inventory would be updated to reflect the incoming goods. Most warehousing companies would use a Warehouse Management System (WMS) to automate warehouse operations. This ensures easy tracking, handling, and reporting.

·         The goods may have a bar code or RFID tag attached to it. This ensures easy data entry using a bar code scanner or an RFID scanner. This saves manual entry of data.

·         The goods are then shifted to the warehouse where they are stored in the designated area.

·         Cross-docking services are also provided where needed by the client. Here the goods never enter the warehouse. On receipt from the client site, they are verified and directly dispatched to the distribution centre or to the customer.

·         In some cases, repackaging may be needed. Repackaging would be done as per the instructions of the client.

2) Warehouse Storage Services

·         Once goods are received at the warehouse and taken into stock, they are moved to the storage area. The storage area for goods is decided in advance.

·         Proper and safe storage is ensured. Where special storage is required, the same would be provided by the warehouse.

·         Regular checking of inventory is done to ensure proper storage of goods.

3) Outbound Logistics Services

·         Once the client informs the warehouse to ship the products, the WMS is used to generate the necessary documentation.

·         The picking system logic is used to decide which goods are to sent (First in First Out, Last in First Out, etc).

·         The goods are shifted on to a pallet, packed and labelled and moved to the dock area where they loaded onto transport vehicles and dispatched to their destination.

The warehousing companies would thus provide all services needed to handle warehouse operations on behalf of other companies.