A warehouse is a commercial building that stores goods and is used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. The goods stored may be anything among raw materials, packing materials, spare parts, components or finished goods. Most often, these warehouses are located in industrial areas of cities where goods are loaded and unloaded from trucks, railways, airports or harbors. The goods may be placed on standard pallets from where they are lifted using cranes and forklifts.
With the advent of logistics software, even warehouses have become automated requiring operators to work and handle all the tasks. The system uses automated conveyors and cranes where pallets and products are made to move. Also, programmable logic controllers and computers running warehouse software automate the storage and retrieval system and are usually installed at refrigerated warehouse to keep the temperatures cool and prevent the product from getting spoiled. An automated storage system may be built up to a height of 40m and is encouraged to efficiently use vertical space. A warehouse can be made to work efficiently by slotting them. Here, the whole system is made to improve its inventory requirements using either FIFO (first-in-first-out) or LIFO (last-in-first-out) procedure. This in turn, controls labor cost and increases productivity.
On the other hand, logistics aims to fulfill the requirements of customers or corporations by managing the flow of goods between the point of origin and point of destination. It may cover an entire range of industries that may include consumer goods such as FMCG (fast moving consumer goods), IT, aerospace, defense, etc. The complete system is a whole sum of information, transportation, inventory, warehousing, material handling, packaging and sometimes, security.
Using a logistics software may help to track product levels, orders, sales and deliveries. It includes four components that
- Track assets: A product in a warehouse is tracked using a bar code or serial number.
- Barcodes: These require a special barcode reader that read the codes looking for information of the product.
- Manage orders : Companies may avoid running out of products by programming the system to reorder a product once it has reached a certain low level
- Manage services: For service companies, it may be easier to track the cost of the materials used in the service.
Distributors, wholesalers, manufacturers and retailers may be helped by grouping and placing products near the delivery area. Such products are usually those that are more popular than others and are readily picked, packed and shipped to customers.