Table of Contents
Summary
By self-improving, warehouses can adapt to the continually shifting consumer expectations and the requirement for flexibility and efficiency. Discover why weighing and dimensioning systems have become their Most Important Players!
Introduction
Today eCommerce Businesses have been forced to reevaluate efficiency and optimization due to shrinking warehouse sizes, shifting customer expectations, and demands for seamless one-day delivery and shorter lead times; space is money in the storage world.
Businesses must improve the efficiency of warehouse and fulfillment center operations if they want to boost profits. Companies whose operations involve warehouses, trucks, trailers, shipping containers, and aviation cargo are more viable when space and labor are used efficiently.
The focus on enhancing supply chain operations’ productivity has increased as businesses explore ways to provide value and boost profitability. For instance, the smooth operation of supply chain activities like slotting, cartonization, quality control, and shipment depends on identifying the appropriate size of Stock Keeping Units (SKUs).
Consider the online retail sector as an example. Packaging plays a crucial role in the process of shipping orders. Insufficient dimensioning and weighing capabilities can result in lower worker productivity and higher costs, notably those associated with dunnage. On the other hand, packaging can be greatly automated, and the most appropriate boxes can be chosen using dimensioning and weighing systems.
Dimensioning and Weighing – Drivers of Profitability
By improving processes, including picking, packaging, storage, shipping, and distribution, dimensional and weighing techniques reduce costs, increase margins, and maximize profitability. It is an essential component in managing warehouse operations. By giving precise measuring data, which aids in placing products in locations that make warehouses as small as possible, the dimensioning and weighing system improves storage density.
Dimensioning and weighing systems evaluate design precision based on product parameters, including height, length, width, and weight. They are made for conveyors and other automation machines. For quick and simple shipments, high-speed print and apply shipping systems can swiftly scan, weigh, and calculate measurements and print and apply carton shipping labels.
Businesses with accurate dimensions might save time and effort by shipping a truckload or cubing out pallets. In addition, precision and transparency in measurement cut wasteful expenditures, turning weighing and dimensioning systems into profit-generating machines.
a. Traditional versus Automated Dimensioning
There are limitations to utilizing tape and rulers to measure packages and pallets. They take much time, are prone to mistakes, need much labor, cause delays and damage, raise the cost of quality, and lower productivity.
Automating the dimensioning procedure eliminates these problems, measures SKUs quickly, and uses the available space well. To reduce operational expenses and overheads, dimensioning and weighing systems streamline and speed up warehouse capabilities, processes, and procedures. Additionally, they resolve problems that prevent warehouses from completing consumer orders, particularly when the order is excessively small or huge. A cutting-edge system, for example, would provide you with the technological prowess necessary to measure cuboids with millimeter-level precision. In typical illumination situations, an advanced vision-based system would calculate an object’s length, width, and height in less than a second!
So, what are dimensioning and weighing systems?
After all, dimensioning and weighing systems are powerful tools that use cutting-edge technology to calibrate the dimensional and weight information of any shaped parcel or package in less than a second. These systems can be integrated with other devices, such as weighing scales, barcode scanners, and label printers, to enhance supply chain functionalities and contribute to higher profits. Reducing carbon footprint and wastage, automated dimensioning and weighing systems reassures greater warehouse sustainability by managing records electronically, identifying best packaging solutions, and reducing waste on boxes, corrugate, dunnage, and packing materials. They help in saving the environment and its associated costs.
A warehouse’s dimensioning and weighing system is an MVP for the following reasons:
Investing in an excellent dimensioning and weighing system offers numerous advantages to businesses. Read below to know the top five benefits of dimensioning and weighing.
#1. Turn down shipping cost inaccuracy
Businesses can accurately calculate the shipping cost by knowing the weights’ exact measurements. Additionally, this information enables businesses to provide clients with better prices. Today, many shipping companies and carriers charge their clients, vendors, and suppliers centering on the size and weight of the shipment. Therefore, measuring the weight, height, length, and width is essential to determine the freight price. By deploying dimensioning and weighing systems, businesses can reduce shipping costs and prevent carrier chargebacks due to inaccurate size estimates and inappropriate freight charges.
#2. Simplifies slotting
In a warehouse or distribution center, slotting organizes stock in the most condensed, effective, and optimal way possible. According to size, weight, perishability, and sales potential, distinct spaces are divided into different types of items. By streamlining and automating the slotting process, dimensioning improves it. Assume, for instance, that the warehouse crew is aware of the precise measurements, weight, and qualities of the products in the shipment. In that situation, they might ensure the product is placed optimally to guarantee that it is handled correctly without suffering damage. Dimensioning and weighing systems enable the slotting system to effortlessly and accurately recommend the best slot for the products.
#3. Enhance cartonization
To determine the quantity and size of the packaging carton required, cartonization evaluates the ordered items. Combining several goods into a single carton is assessed by the cartonization function. By minimizing time and effort, dimensioning and weighing system enhances cartonization. The ideal technique to pack each carton depends on each item’s weight, height, length, and width. By experimenting with different product box sizes and counts, warehouse staff does not need to waste time and postpone deliveries. By selecting the proper sized package, dimensioning also lessen needless filling of air and dunnage.
#4. Assists capacity planning
Capacity planning is crucial for inventory and management in warehouses with limited space. Companies benefit from lower fulfillment costs, faster selection, and better use of space. Dimensioning inventory helps warehouses plan the transition to a new facility or organize or reorganize the current area. Accurate weights and measurements make it easier to determine the required pallet racking. Future capacity planning is made simple once the warehouse manager measures each item’s weight, height, length, and width and cartonizes it. Managing the number of bulk pick locations is another time-consuming step in capacity planning. Accurate placement decisions and plans should be made using average and peak inventories based on cubic measurements.
#5. Boosts quality control
One significant duty of the order fulfillment function is to guarantee the caliber of orders to be supplied. By preventing damaged goods from reaching customers, enhancing order accuracy, and lowering returns and related expenses, quality control has an impact on warehouse efficiency. Dimensioning the products makes it easier to see obvious flaws in Outbound and inbound shipments. When the product’s weight, height, width, and breadth are not precisely measured, it cannot be properly examined for quality and corrected or replaced immediately. Dimensioning speeds up reception and inspection by cutting down on time spent on visual checks. As a result, computerized measuring prevents incorrect shipments, personnel expenditures, and wasteful returns caused by insufficient quality inspections.
Conclusion
Even the most cutting-edge, inventive Al and ML-enabled robots and systems will not be able to perform to their utmost potential without suitable dimensioning and weighing systems. Furthermore, measurements of weight and dimensions must be accurate to control expenses and increase revenues. Therefore, building reliable, top-notch dimensioning and weighing systems is essential for efficient, profitable, and productive warehouse management.
