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As companies evaluate ways to improve operational efficiencies and reduce costs while better meeting customer needs and organizational goals, enterprise resource planning (ERP) tools are increasingly valuable investments for businesses of all sizes.

By streamlining multiple disparate systems into one easy-to-use platform, ERPs connect business processes so data and information can be quickly and easily shared and analyzed to help organizations make better business decisions.

ERP adoption and implementation can be expensive. Depending on the number of applications you need, the number of users who access your system, and the amount of customization you require, on average businesses invest more than $1 million in a new ERP system.

So what would motivate a company to invest that much capital in a new business process management system?

The savings.

For example, one study finds that on average an ERP can reduce overall operational costs by 23% and administrative costs by 22%. That’s a significant saving over time. And while operational savings may be a driving factor to explore ERP adoption, quality ERP programs can do more than just save money.

Did you know that 95% of businesses say they have major operational improvements after implementing an ERP? The improvements include reducing process times, increasing collaboration and centralizing data.

Before we take a deeper dive into ERP cost-savings, let’s take a quick look at some questions you should ask when considering if an ERP is right for your company, if it’s within your budget, and if, once implemented, its improvements and efficiencies will add up to significant cost-, time-, and resource-savings:

• First, what do you anticipate your up-front costs to be?
• Have you completed a comprehensive analysis of your existing business processes?
• Have you aligned your vendor selection process with the requirements list you compiled after reviewing your business processes?
• Have you worked closely with your selected vendor to analyze budget-related obstacles? According to an ERP study by Technology Evaluation Centers (TEC), 65% of ERP implementations go over budget.
• Have you determined if an on-premise or cloud-hosted ERP best meets your needs?
• Have you determined the total number of applications and services you’ll need included in your ERP?
• Have you determined how many users will need to access your system?
• Have you selected an ERP that will work for you out-of-the-box or do you need additional customizations to meet your business needs? Remember that with most vendors, the more customizations you require, the higher your implementation costs may be.
• Have you determined which types of customizations you need and how complex they may be?

Once you’ve evaluated and determined your up-front costs, let’s look at ways an ERP can decrease operational expenses and promote longer-term organizational growth.

Here are 6 ways an ERP can save your business time and money:

1. ERPs cut operational costs and improve efficiencies

ERPs integrate core business processes. An ERP eliminates the need for disparate systems across departments and geolocations, and instead centralizes and integrates these functions into a single system. The goal is to streamline processes and improve information exchanges across an entire organization, no matter how large or small.

Essentially, this means more work can be done (with automation) using less time and resources as well as fewer people. Ultimately, that leads to fewer operational costs overall and sets your business on a path toward growth.

2. Improved communication and data exchange with better collaboration

Post-ERP adoption, most organizations experience an easier exchange of business information that is facilitated by a simpler flow of knowledge, information, and data throughout departments. This means business transactions throughout the organization are visible to key stakeholders in near real time.

As automation helps reduce errors and remove factors caused by people-based processes, (think…. "Oops! I left that document on my desk!"), ERPs help improve data information exchanges with more accuracy, which in turns means decision-makers can make better, more timely business decisions. Automation also leads to improved employee satisfaction by reducing frustration and increasing employee productivity.

As information exchange is made easier and organizational-wide communication improves, company-wide silos are often broken down and employees tend to be happier, further bolstering morale and productivity outcomes.

3. Centralized business functions and decreased process times

ERPs are designed to be easy-to-use systems that unify, standardize, and automate business processes—everything from customer service, to accounting, to inventory and supply chain management, to invoicing and payment, and everything in between.

ERPs help eliminate duplicate processes and save time. Gone are the days where, over time, a singular process is changed and modified by various employees to the point where it no longer resembles its initial intent and where one or two key employees hold the knowledge keys that, without them, could immediately thwart or halt operations.

A well-designed ERP will centralize your business functions and promote more timely and efficient daily operations.

Think about invoicing. With an ERP, standardized processes — including notifications and alerts to key team members — means the sooner you can get your invoices out, the sooner you can get paid. ERPs also help ensure that every employee follows the same processes, ensuring consistency across your operations for recurring tasks.

Also, it’s key here to point out that good ERPs will give you access to analytics and dashboards that will help you monitor processes and workflows and enable you to give thoughtful feedback to teams for improvements while keeping key stakeholders informed.

4. Inventory and Supply Chain Management

Manufacturing companies are leading the way for ERP adoption, but regardless of your business type, you can benefit from ERP efficiencies. One way is getting a more comprehensive look into your supply chain and better understanding the scope of your inventory.

Whether you need insight into ordering, refilling, or reviewing supply needs, an ERP can help align your product inventory with your customers’ current and future needs.

A quality ERP can help you decrease product shortages, proactively address supply chain gaps, and better budget for inventory volumes while decreasing unnecessary spending and purchases for items that may remain in long-term (thus unused) storage facilities.

ERPs help you better analyze spending and purchases over time so you can more accurately determine your inventory needs, including tracking, waste analytics, damage assessments, and evaluations of products that are no longer essential to your current business needs.

5. Improved customer relationship management (CRM)

Not only does an ERP move multiple business processes into a single platform, it can also align your customer relationship management (CRM) database into the same system, giving you comprehensive insight into your customers’ needs no matter where they may be in the buyers’ journey.

The best ERPs help organizations align all of their customer records into a single database. This unified records system gives companies the ability to track all of their customer interactions — everything from an email or phone call, to an order, invoicing, payment receipt, and customer feedback.

ERPs help you align your customer interactions and company communications into one dashboard allowing all stakeholders to immediately have insight to address customer needs. This creates a unique opportunity to improve your customer service and target communications specifically to your buyers based on predetermined categorizations established by your business goals and objectives. These targeted customer segments mean you can get the right message to the right customers at the right time and often removes manual processes, thereby facilitating more timely and accurate engagements with customer needs. These ERP improvements also give you the ability to quantify return-on-investment for customer satisfaction and interaction with your organization.

6. Less IT costs and reduced labor burdens

Earlier, we mentioned how ERPs help with centralizing business processes. A related time and cost-saving factor is specifically related to IT costs.

With disparate systems, IT teams must invest a lot of time and resources into maintenance costs, maintenance time, and direct or indirect labor costs involved with new software purchases, updating existing systems, follow-through on licensing agreements, and training. These older approaches to business systems often negate the option for scalability, especially when it comes to time and expenses.

ERPs remove the need to have different programs for different departmental functions, which are often more complicated and more costly the larger an organization is. ERPs help decrease additional spending on software and hardware systems and eliminate the need for routine workflow disruptions when those systems have to be updated, patched, or replaced.

ERPs: Worth the Investment

On average, it takes a small or medium sized business (SMB) about 11 months after go-live to experience the full benefits of ERP adoption. For larger businesses it’s a little faster, often about seven months.

When it comes to business process change management, that can seem like a quick turnaround, but for organizations that successfully adopt and implement an ERP, the overall operational efficiencies, improved customer service, opportunities for growth, and happier employees sometimes outweigh numbers on a spreadsheet.

Are you interested in increasing the speed and accuracy of your daily operations, with significant potential to save time, money, and resources? Register for a webinar today to learn how aACE can help you seamlessly integrate your sales, operations, and accounting systems into one, powerful, easy-to-use system.

"aACE helped us to bring all of our company functions together into one system. This has helped us with automating reporting and avoiding the need for extra cross-checking among systems." - Lance Caffrey, EVP Operations, American Christmas

 

As another year comes to a close, learn how you can set your business up for success in 2020 by joining our December webinars. Last month, we covered topics ranging from inventory to accounting and CRM to system administration. Here's what we have in store for December:

December 2nd – Credit Card Purchasing

You've seen Accounts Payable in action; now take a deeper look at how aACE makes it easy to use credit cards for purchasing.

December 4th – Document Management

aACE's document management system allows you to attach files directly to records in aACE, ensuring that you always have the information you need right at your fingertips. And for large files, aACE allows you to link records directly to a folder on your server. Check out our feature highlight and demo video for a sneak peek.

December 9th – Commissions

Learn how aACE's comprehensive commissions tools can help you incentivize your sales team and reward your affiliates for referring new business.

December 11th – aACE Job Shop App

Save time and reduce data entry errors on your production floor with the aACE Job Shop app. Before the webinar, check out our feature highlight and demo video to get an advance look at the app.

December 16th – Shipping & the aACE Pick App

Your customers depend on you to get them the right products at the right time. Learn how aACE streamlines the pick, pack, and ship process with our Pick App and shipping integrations, and take a sneak peek by checking out our feature highlight.

December 18th – Beginning Balances Part 1

Now that the end of the year is almost upon us, learn how aACE makes it easy to close out the year and start 2020 with accurate accounting.

December 23rd – Beginning Balances Part 2

Learn more about aACE's end-of-year accounting tools in this conclusion to our two-part webinar.

We look forward to seeing you in our December webinars! Register now to save your seat.

If you rely on a patchwork of systems to manage workflows and users across your organization, business process management can be a big source of frustration.

Do you have one program to manage your accounting needs? Another to handle customer relationship management (CRM)? Something else for inventory management? Do you have one or two people who hold the mental keys for all the knowledge about how everything works together?

This is reality for many organizations — an interconnected jumble of hodge-podge disparate systems, siloed knowledge, ever-changing technology, and employees that come, go, and shift around within your company.

When someone announces, “I’ve got a solution to handle all your needs!” your ears may perk up and you’re ready to dash off toward better days. It sounds great (and it really is) — one platform to automate vital processes and make your day-to-day business management run more efficiently.

When you’re presented with something feature-rich that could change the way you do business, it’s not hard to rush off after it. But when it comes to adopting an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution, the challenge begins with actively analyzing your needs, then preparing for, choosing, and successfully implementing the right ERP for your needs.

So where do you begin?

Here are 8 challenges businesses face when choosing and implementing an ERP. Read on to learn how you can overcome some of the common missteps that can cost your company time and money, and derail your successful ERP adoption.

Challenge 1: Not a Good Starting Point

First, ERP selection and implementation hinges on strategy. That’s because without a well thought-out plan and approach, you may stumble over organizational problems or people-related issues, and miss aligning today’s processes with tomorrow’s needs.

When you’re thinking about adopting an ERP, it’s important to include an analysis of all of your existing business processes so you can better understand the scope of your ERP needs.

Don’t just think about existing processes as they function for your company today. ERP adoption is a great time to take a closer look at these processes, determine what works well, what can work better, and what your future needs may look like. If you have a process that doesn’t work well now and then you automate it with your ERP implementation, you’re not going to get the most out of what your ERP can offer. This evaluation can create opportunities to improve or change your existing workflows.

It’s also important at this early stage to look at all the critical software, systems, and applications that your organization needs to operate. What are your existing sticking points or problems? How can they be resolved with your ERP implementation? Remember, it’s important that all issues that may affect business-critical operations be assessed prior to choosing and implementing your new ERP.

Does your ERP solution seamlessly integrate with your existing business operations? Will it integrate with your sales program? Will it work with your accounting systems? Will it replace those other solutions altogether?

Did you know that 80% of respondents from a Technology Evaluation Centers (TEC) survey said that ensuring the right fit of the ERP to business needs is often overlooked? That could mean that at the end of your implementation phase you may find yourself with an ERP that only meets some of your needs. Be sure to take the time up front to analyze all your operational needs and goals, map them out, and include them in a list of requirements before selecting your ERP vendor.

Challenge #2: Selecting the Right Vendor

After you’ve analyzed your business processes and needs and created a requirements list, it’s time to evaluate potential vendors against your ERP goals.

In that TEC survey we mentioned, 50% of respondents said that poor choice in selecting an implementation partner is a key reason why ERP implementations fail. That’s why it’s important to carefully select an ERP partner who will work closely with your team throughout the evaluation and implementation process — one that will proactively evaluate your goals and objectives and suggest plans and processes that will have positive impacts on your operations.

Here are a few questions you can ask:

• How many similar projects have you successfully implemented?
• What are some of the common issues you’ve encountered and how can we proactively address them before we get started?
• What types of industries do you serve?
• Could you tell me a little more about your scope of experience?
• What does your pricing criteria look like and what’s included?
• What are some of your ERP’s core features and how do they apply to my business needs?

Challenge #3: Business Silos and Communication Issues

When assigned the task of choosing and guiding an ERP implementation, it’s fairly common for teams to start at the top with executive-level buy-in. But what about mid-level managers and employees responsible for the day-to-day tasks directly related to your ERP processes?

While executive-level and key stakeholder buy-in is important (they can stronger influence company-wide understanding and adoption), don’t forget about how important it is to get involved with key employees who will use the system the most. Engage with them as early — and as frequently — as possible.

Once you’ve identified these key players, create a communication plan. Make sure all employees know about your ERP goals and take the time to engage with them so they understand how their individual roles are directly connected to company success.

If your company is too large for one person to handle all communication about your ERP plans and progress, create a small communications team that represents different departments throughout various parts of your organization (don’t forget about different geolocations, if applicable). Empower them to help tell your ERP story throughout your company.

Work with your core team to keep them up-to-date throughout the process and be sure they know it’s important (and their responsibility) to share that information — including progress, milestones, challenges, and setbacks — with their related teams. Always be sure these communication plans include the people who will be most affected by ERP implementation and adoption.

Don’t forget to create ways for your employees to give you feedback throughout the process. Be open to accepting suggestions, criticisms, and improvements, especially from those who will routinely use the system.

Challenge #4: Insufficient Budgeting

When budgeting for ERP implementation, there are a number of factors that could increase the scope of work and ultimately the final cost for your project. If your ERP system is out-of-the-box and meets all of your needs, you may need less wiggle room in your budget than for a system that requires a lot of customization to meet your needs. Remember that requirement list we mentioned in Challenge #1? The better you field that list and the better you evaluate your vendors against it (Challenge #2), the more successful you may be in curbing unexpected costs.

Also, don’t forget that most new systems require some level of upkeep and maintenance. Don’t let those extra costs slip away from you when you’re budgeting for a new system. Learn more about estimating service costs in our FAQs.

Challenge 5: Building the Right Team

We mentioned company silos and communication issues in Challenge #3. Selecting the right team members for your ERP assessment and implementation team can help address some of those challenges. While many people see ERP adoption as an IT priority, the reality is your new ERP system will impact many employees across many functions of your business.

Building the right team is essential to your success. Be sure your ERP team is made up of people from key departments throughout your organization. Include employees at all levels — executives, mid-level managers, project managers, and those responsible for day-to-day tasks that are a part of your ERP.

Challenge #6: Bad Data

If you’re migrating to new a business management solution and you lose valuable data or complete implementation with data that’s inaccessible, your ERP implementation process may be a big flop.

Bad data can be a big fail point for your ERP program. Be sure your vendor can handle data migration and can manage data integration without losing data quality or thwarting essential operations caused by data loss.

Challenge #7: Not Enough Time

ERP selection, implementation, adoption, and training can be time consuming. Often, key players need to be reassigned away from their normal daily tasks so they can focus full-time on ERP transitions. Work with your ERP vendor to create a project timeline that includes key roles and responsibilities. Compare this to your organizational needs and daily operational objectives. Align the two and then set an implementation timeline that realistically enables your company to function as you need while ERP implementation gets the attention and time it deserves. Remember, the more time spent on the front end of planning and implementation, the more likely it is that your team can tackle issues before they negatively impact operations post-adoption.

Challenge #8: Change Management Issues

Let’s say you’ve considered all your business goals and objectives. You’ve selected the best ERP for your needs. You’re working with a great vendor. Your budget is on point. You’ve given yourself enough time to work through each stage of the process. Your data migrated successfully and all systems are operational. But what happens when the people affected by the new system don’t embrace the change? What if they prefer to do things the way they’ve always been done? What if naysayers negatively impact employee perception of all the work your team accomplished?

The reality is, not everyone likes change and even fewer like change that’s forced upon them without their input. About 45% of people from the TEC survey said poor change management is a factor in ERP implementation, and unfortunately, change management is an area often overlooked in business.

When planning for your ERP, be sure to create plans that address change management — not just for the processes and technologies, but people, too. ERP is more than a behind-the-scenes solution. It can affect an entire operation.

One way to help manage this change is to ensure you’ve addressed the communications and team member challenges mentioned earlier, but also by providing adequate and efficient training on the new ERP system. Create a training schedule that gives employees enough time to get comfortable with the new system and addresses questions and concerns. Encourage feedback and reward employees whose suggestions make your operations better.

Efficiencies With ERP

Once you’ve overcome these challenges, you’ll be well on your way to improving business efficiencies with your new ERP solution. Your operation will run more smoothly, your team will be able to automate many tasks that may have previously been done manually, and you’ll have instant access to data and insight that can help your company make better operational decisions. Ready to learn more? Check out our feature highlights to see how aACE can help you optimize your workflows.

"I started searching for an ERP solution for our company using the brute force approach — contact as many software vendors as possible and compare. I went through about a dozen vendors, not finding the perfect fit, until I came across aACE. The aACE Software team initially struck me as unique, refreshingly knowledgeable and very in-tune with the modern demands of an ERP software package — solving problems with their software that no one else seemed to give a second thought, and making mainstream technology and media work the way it should for a company. The efficiencies built into the software are strong on all fronts — especially accounting and order fulfillment tracking. I definitely recommend the superior product and the team behind it that makes it so." ~ Derek Navratil, IT Administrator, Essential Water Solutions, Inc.

As a small- or medium-sized business owner, you’re always looking for ways to run your own organization better to get a leg up on the competition. While you’ve surely devoted plenty of time to branding, product sourcing, and even hiring the right people, there is one crucial step you may be missing.

Business operations doesn’t sound very exciting, but the truth is that the systems you use to run your business are more important than ever. With today’s digitized workforce, there are now a myriad of products out there that claim to help operations run as smoothly as possible⁠ — and you need to be implementing one of them. Some of these software products are staggering in their complexity and scope, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Let’s start, therefore, with the “bread and butter” of business operations, which is Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software.

What is a CRM Program?

A CRM is designed to help you keep track of all aspects of relationships between your business and the customers being served. In the beginning, CRMs were little more than databases with contact information, and perhaps fields to hand-enter notes about sales. These days, there are CRM software packages that tie sales directly in with orders/inventory, document all interactions with customers (and potential customers), and even tie in with digital marketing outreach tools.

Today, many CRMs can also gather information about customer interactions, sales rates, and other metrics and display easy-to-follow analytic information that gives a “bird’s eye view” of how sales are doing. With the complexity and level of involvement that a CRM is going to have in your company’s business operations, it’s important to take the time to make the right choice. Still not convinced that it’s worth the time and upfront investment? Keep reading to learn the top 5 reasons why you need to implement a CRM now.

Reason 1. Your Company Will Be More Efficient

Good CRM software will have the ability to standardize complex operations. For example, onboarding new clients/customers is an infamously time-heavy endeavour. Save time and bandwidth by standardizing and automating much of this process.

The “Bird’s Eye View” discussed above also has important implications for team management and quality improvement. Having a live view of sales statistics can help managers better quantify employee performance. A good CRM also makes it easy to spot products or processes that are negatively impacting customer satisfaction. Finally, if your company sells physical goods, a CRM that either provides live inventory information or integrates with program that does will allow leadership to more accurately plan out wholesale purchasing.

Reason 2. Customer Service (and Relationships) Will Improve

Many CRM programs sell themselves as invaluable tools to improve business relationships, and while modern CRMs might do a lot more than relationship management, this founding cornerstone of the product is still one of its most important features. Essentially, because a good CRM will document all touchpoints with clients and potential clients, your sales and support teams will have easy access to the “whole picture.” This includes the client’s contact information, any professional quotes provided by the sales team, all previous comments and interactions, and ordering history.

Simply having this information quickly available will help both support and sales teams provide more flexible, responsive, and personalized service to all customers and potential customers alike. Ideally, this will translate into increased customer retention, good reviews, and a more positive experience for your employees, too.

Reason 3. Your Data Will Be Centralized & Secure

One reason that some companies hold off on implementing a CRM is the unpleasant logistical process of migrating all of your old information into one centralized database. There are many reasons why migrating to a CRM is worth it, and if the customer service argument isn’t enough to convince Accounting to sign off on it, data security very well might be a critical point to make.

Sure, relying on a hodgepodge of spreadsheets, collaborative Word files, and rolodexes might have worked during the 90s, but today, leaving this information in unsecured format puts you at risk of catastrophe. While a data breach⁠ is probably the first thing that comes to mind, remember that you could also lose all of your local files should the office computer fail one day. For the most part, CRMs provide automatic secure storage and backup of company information. For the reasons listed above, make sure the programs you’re considering do have this feature.

Reason 4. You’ll Be Ready For Growth

We already know that centralizing and standardizing business operations can make many business processes more efficient. Especially if you pick a CRM with built-in analytics tools, your various internal teams will have to spend significantly less time getting an accurate picture of what is going on within the company at any given time.

This increased time means more bandwidth for teams to spend doing the work that really matters: improving your product or service, finding new customers, and growing the business. For companies looking for funding or acquisition from a 3rd party, having a good CRM in place means your operations are more transparent, potentially making you more attractive to investors.

Reason 5. The Competition is Already Using One

Know that your competition is already doing everything it can to streamline business operations and expand; most likely, they are running some kind of software to help them do this. Implementing a CRM keeps your business competitive and responsive to change, while helping you to provide a higher level of personalized customer service that your clients and business partners may have come to expect in the field.

Finally, data from your CRM might even help you compete with other businesses in a different way. Namely, your teams may be able to use up some of the newfound time that was previously spent reconciling numbers, communicating back-and-forth, or trying to find information to really dig into the CRM’s analytical tools. Customer behavior and buying patterns are powerful indicators of future trends; having a good CRM in place could mean the difference between catching onto the “next big thing” or getting left behind in the proverbial non-digital dust.

 

Sold on the idea of a CRM solution but have no idea where to start? Check out our intuitive CRM engine that fully integrates with all of aACE’s operations tools, from order management to shipping and receiving. And to learn more about what else aACE can do for your business, register for a webinar today.

"Without much training you can logically understand how this program fits into our work environment. It has a comprehensive Customer Relationship Management section that leads into prospective customers becoming real customers. From that point you can take an order from start to finish by capturing deadlines, resources and material costs spent on a project, as well as extensive accounting functions. The program is user friendly and easy enough for our whole staff, with varying levels of technical skills to embrace." ~Lili Hall, President, KNOCK

Discover what a comprehensive business management solution can do for you in our November webinars. Last month, we covered topics ranging from the very basics of aACE to accounting, inventory, and order management. Here's what we have in store next:

November 4th – Production

Your production process has a lot of moving parts, and your business depends on keeping them all running smoothly. Learn how aACE can help.

November 6th – Made to Stock Inventory

If you build products to stock according to anticipated consumer demand, this is the webinar for you. Learn how aACE handles MTS inventory from replenishment to cost application and beyond.

November 11th – Inventory Reorder Management

Ensure you always have the right number of products at the right time with aACE's smart inventory reorder management tools. And to get a sneak peek at this powerful feature, check out our feature highlight.

November 13th – Accounting Basics

Learn how aACE's fully-integrated accounting tools can help increase visibility into your business's financials, save time, and reduce the potential for errors caused by duplicate data entry.

November 18th – aACE CRM App and Sales Leads

Your sales team is moving fast to keep your customers and prospects engaged, and they need a solution that can keep up – even when they're on the go. See our CRM App in action and learn more about how sales leads move through aACE. Check out our feature highlight for a sneak peek before the presentation.

November 20th – System Administration

Take an advanced look at aACE system administration. Learn how aACE makes it easy to manage system preferences, user access privileges, and system notices. Our powerful segregation-of-duties tools gives you full control over what your users can see and do.

Register now to save your spot! We look forward to seeing you in our webinars and hearing your questions during the presentations.

Struggling with small-part picking errors in your warehouse?

There are 4 simple things that you can do to help your workers stop miscounting, dropping, or incorrectly labeling small components. Keep reading to find out some classic causes of picking errors and what you can do about them.

Four Tactics to Reduce Small Parts Order Picking Errors

When it comes to warehouse operations, small parts can be a tricky business. When compared to larger products, small components are more likely to be miscounted, incorrectly measured, or dropped.

Since the demand for orders containing smaller parts is not going away, businesses instead need to look toward innovative problem-solving ideas. Several surprisingly simple interventions can make the process of picking, handling, and packing easier for everyone from the supply chain manager to the worker handling the product.

Before you begin reading about solutions, however, make sure you have a thorough understanding of the problems your specific facility is experiencing. For example, mislabeled products point to a different problem than packing counts that are off. Is there a process in place that workers are finding difficult, or another potential bottleneck that’s causing problems? It’s worth it to speak to floor managers for their input.

Tip # 1: Store Smarter

Many hospitals have already picked up on the “similarity is dangerous” concept and banned the storing of two medications with similar names next to each other. Companies that require the picking and sorting of small parts could also benefit from this logic.

If two items are frequently getting mislabeled, mixed up, or are ending up in the wrong place, consider placing a different-sized (or shaped) item between them. If that isn’t possible, consider color-coding labels or some other easy visual reminder.

While we’re on the subject of how the warehouse is storing products, it’s also important to ensure that pickers have enough space to operate fully, and easily see the difference between containers of components.

Tip #2: Use the Buddy System

There’s a reason why NASA built two of every system onto their lunar exploration spacecraft. Having a backup (or second pair of eyes) is invaluable if there is a mistake or failure. In some cases, the other tips on this list can’t be implemented. However, the “buddy system”, or requiring one employee to check another’s work for errors, is time-honored and fairly simple to put into place.

Especially if you’ve been experiencing a significant amount of errors in your facility, having a backup to check everyone’s work could save you valuable time that was previously being spent finding and correcting errors.

When it comes to two workers checking each other’s orders, it’s also important to remember to rotate workers through jobs so that they stay engaged and motivated. If workers routinely are rotated to new positions, it helps control burnout and increases productivity.

Tip #2: Consider a Smart Voice System

Unlike the “buddy system”, this tip applies to workspaces that have more advanced technology. For jobs that require complex counting or indexing, a voice-tracking system can be tremendously helpful. This would allow a worker to work with mentally easier denominations like 5 or 10; with a voice tracker, she could count six sets of ten instead of counting from 1-60, vastly reducing the opportunity to make a counting mistake.

Although some accounting departments can balk at adding the costs of worker-assistant solutions like this one, a thorough calculation of time saved on improved worker efficiency and decreased errors could very well prove that such a system will easily pay for itself.

Tip #3: Pack with Purpose

Explore your supply chain: is there any way that smaller composite parts can be pre-bundled into packs of 5 or 10? For example, when a worker is sorting parts for an electronic device, being able to grab 4 packs of 5 components each not only saves time, it reduces the risk of counting errors. While this does require another level of counting, it’s worth exploring if there’s a way to separate the “pre-packing” from the high-speed environment of actually getting a live order fulfilled.

Another side of reducing counting errors is to give customers a small financial incentive to order round or even numbers. While this is only applicable to certain industries, it’s worth giving a shot.

Tip #4: Evaluate Your Work Environment

Especially if you’ve put other error control measures into place and still keep getting errors, it’s time to go back to the introduction of this article and consider whether the processes you have in place are the most effective way for your employees to get the job done. Is the pace of the operation simply moving too fast? Are workers more concerned with quota than accuracy? Try to interview people from every level of the warehouse to evaluate if there’s anything you can do.

If you can view individual picker’s work histories and error records, consider distributing your best employees to be near temps or new hires. While it’s tempting to focus only on statistics when looking at a worker (and disciplining those whose numbers are unsatisfactory), remember that this can lead to morale problems; consider putting positive reinforcements in place instead.

 

If you’re ready to take your business to the next level of performance and efficiency, it’s time to look at one-stop software solutions that cover all of your businesses’ needs in one integrated, easy-to-use platform. Read more about what an ERP can do for your business, and join a webinar today to see aACE in action.

"I would recommend this software to anyone wanting to simplify his or her workflow, anyone who wants their software to work for them and not the other way around, and anyone tired of the ERP money pit!" -Todd Breedlove, Vice President, Knight Hardwood Flooring Inc.