3PL warehousing (domestic & offshore), as with overall business, has evolved significantly in the past 10 years. In the past, warehouses served as stocking points where goods were stored and dispatched when needed.
As supply chains started to take shape, the role of the warehouse advanced to include coordinating the flow of material, providing information, and tracking and tracing of the goods.
Supply chain advancement has resulted in warehouses facing increased product proliferation, globalisation, and consolidation and hence ever increasing complexity. With each passing year, providers of 3PL Melbourne services have modified their service offerings from providing basic warehouse space and labour to customised warehouse services.
3PL companies now use technology to automate processes that were previously manual, work in a real time environment by providing instant inventory visibility, optimise warehousing processes to operate efficiently and provide solutions in warehouse layout and design. All of these advancements work to fulfil customer demand within the budget and time constraint.
Read on to learn more about how providers of 3PL in Melbourne and all over Australia have evolved over the past 10 years.
Standard warehouse to customised warehouse services
In the past, traditional warehouses used a “push strategy”, where existing 3PL warehousing services fulfilled customers’ needs. Today, warehouses follow a “pull strategy“, where 3PL warehousing services are tailored to meet the specific demands of their customers’ industries. To customise 3PL warehouse solutions, the challenge lies in understanding the business requirement, setting up the process flow and finding the right balance between cost and service.
Over the years, providers of 3PL Melbourne have continuously expanded the pool of knowledge in warehousing operations and translated this knowledge into customised solutions that assist organisations find the right balance of cost and speed.
One size warehouse facility to warehouse facility design
In the modern warehouse of today, the first challenge before operations start is the design and layout of the warehouse. In the past, many 3PL providers lacked the skill to design a 3PL warehouse that could support expansion and the ability to accommodate the business in the future. Over time, providers of 3PL Melbourne mastered warehouse design solutions such as creating the right storage solution based on product profiles, storage types for each SKU, inventory turns, smart put away and picking processes.
The benefits of designing the right layout ensures that space utilisation and processes are fully optimised and the desired outcomes of turn-around time, service levels and costs are met.
Advanced technology solutions: Shift from manual to automation
Before technology took a leap, warehouse management consisted of manual processes written on paper. Handling large amounts of data, maintaining inventory accuracy, and other information at warehouses was a major challenge and consumed many resources. With the emergence of technology, warehouse management has managed to overcome all these challenges. In past 10 years, providers of 3PL Melbourne have evolved to be technology-oriented solution providers using technological solutions such as barcoding to streamline warehouse processes, increase data accuracy, improve the ability to execute, and trace inventory information, all at one place.
From paper based systems to operating in real time
In the past, 3PL warehouses lacked visibility and real time tracking of stock, resulting in stock-outs, which meant losing customers. This demanded that information be manually updated as soon as the task was completed. Today, 3PL warehouses provide transparency, visibility and complete tracking of goods. Using a WMS and operating in real time gives instant inventory visibility to 3PL customers, as opposed to the long lags experienced in earlier years.
Through the years, providers of 3PL Melbourne have upgraded software and data collection tools to keep inventory levels accurate and up to date. Providers of 3PL Melbourne now have the capability to capture all this information in real time and provide it back to customers seamlessly. The same WMS system enables information flow back from customers almost instantly so responses to the customers’ instructions are provided in real time, driving an improved supply chain performance and customer satisfaction.
From bottlenecks to optimised warehouse processes
Warehouse processes of goods receiving, checking, staging, put-away, picking, packing and dispatching are ideally designed based on what and how the goods are expected to be received from sources and then delivered to destination points. In years past, many of these processes have not been in accord, which frequently created bottlenecks at various stages of order processing.
Over time, providers of 3PL Melbourne developed the capability to design optimised processes that include deciding the ideal level of automation, the right technology and the ideal number of people required. The right trade-off between order fulfilment and costs can now be achieved by optimising these processes.
The past 10 years have seen an increase in supply chain complexity, introduced a variety of new technologies and brought ideas that have changed the state of warehousing services. With time warehouses evolved from ‘active storage buildings’ to ‘proactive operational warehouses’. However, survival in today’s environment needs continuous improvement and changes, and this requires that the design, storage and software solutions are up to date with changing times.
Over this period, providers of 3PL in Melbourne, such as BCR, have ensured 3PL warehouse solutions are up-to date and flexible to accommodate any changes in business environment.
For more than a century BCR has continued to assist small, medium and large businesses achieve an optimum logistics solution with 3PL warehousing, sea freight, air freight and domestic transportation services to and from the major ports of including Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Fremantle (Perth).
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