Business analysis can help manufacturers better achieve their goals with improved organisation, less waste, better technology, lower costs, higher profits, compliance achievement, higher quality and more. So how can strong business analysis improve your manufacturing warehouse processes and therefore your business?
Having a focus
There are plenty of different warehouse jobs however how many are in line with the organisation’s goals? If for example the key warehouse goals are to achieve cost reductions, a higher warehouse throughput, greater order fulfilment and more robust training methods e.g. to cope with recruitment of temporary workers at peak times, then business analysis, often combined with systems analysis will help understand where unfocused work is occurring, help regain focus and therefore also help reduce costs.
Effective resource usage
Business analysis will identify resource waste such as lift truck usage, general warehouse skills deployment, IT and warehouse systems use and labour productivity improvement. Business analysis will separate work tasks that appear to need resources with tasks and areas that actually need them.
Correct warehouse systems and hardware identification
Strong business analysis will identify the right warehouse management system functionality, the correct fit for purpose hardware and the right level of costs to suit the organisation. In other words it is not a simple matter of simply replacing one piece of software with another or with the latest box of tricks, rather finding the best and most suitable software solutions and suitable hardware for the manufacturing organisation.
Best use of budget
This will help determine where the money is best spent and importantly in line with the organisation and manufacturing warehouse focus. So for example this isn’t a simple decision on spending the most money on the best workers or most skilled personnel. Rather it is time to understand how money can be best spent in line with business goals. To achieve higher throughput for example could mean a complete warehouse redesign, automation, or training of people giving them a wider range of stock movement, goods receipt, picking and packing or despatch skills.
Reviewing company policies
Policies and procedures that are no longer in line with the current business focus will be found then either updated, or discarded in favour of more relevant policies. Whether this is to do with working hours, over time payments, skills payments, use of third party resources, asset restrictions, spending limits or whatever, then business analysis will improve policies and procedures to help the organisation achieve its focus.