Welcome to ScaleWorks, our practical guide series designed to help warehouses grow smoothly, not chaotically.
Each edition tackles a key strategy for scaling your warehouse without the stress. Today, we're exploring one essential step you should never skip: standardising your warehouse processes before growth leaves you scrambling.
Warehouses often start small, using informal processes that work just fine... until suddenly, they don’t.
Here’s exactly how to get ahead by building solid, repeatable processes early, giving your warehouse the strong foundations it will need in the near future for sustainable growth.
Why Standardising Processes Is the Smart Move
Relying on informal, undocumented processes might seem fine in the short term, but it quickly becomes costly. Every undocumented workflow risks errors, missed orders, and frustrated customers.
Standardised procedures, on the other hand, cut error rates dramatically. Warehouses that implement clear Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) often see significant improvements in picking accuracy, safeguarding margins as order volumes climb.
Make SOPs Your Team Will Actually Use
Effective SOPs don't come in the form of manuals, but rather as practical tools your team uses on a daily basis. Clear, visual documentation helps new hires become productive quickly, while experienced staff avoid costly slip-ups.
Keep your SOPs visual and easy-to-follow:
- Illustrate tasks using clear photos, flowcharts, or even GIFs.
- Store digital versions centrally in the cloud for easy version control and instant updates.
- Formalise these processes using your WMS, if your current system allows for it.
Map Workflows and Assign Clear Owners
Documenting your processes is just the start. Each workflow needs a clearly defined owner responsible for maintaining, improving, and ensuring compliance.
Visually mapping mapping your workflows using swim-lane diagrams is invaluable. These clearly communicate hand-offs between teams like goods-in and picking or packing and despatch, cutting down miscommunication and dropped tasks.
Also consider a simple RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) matrix. It clearly defines who owns each step, preventing confusion about responsibility.
Choose KPIs That Matter, and Ignore the Rest
Tracking warehouse performance is crucial, but if you have too many KPIs, it can overwhelm your team. Instead, focus on a small set of actionable metrics that genuinely impact efficiency, such as:
- Picking accuracy. Target ≥99% to directly reduces costly returns and customer complaints.
- Order cycle time (order-to-despatch). Shortening this boosts customer satisfaction and warehouse capacity.
- Dock-to-stock time. Aim for ≤8 hours for regular inbound loads, as faster inbound handling frees cash otherwise tied up in stock.
- Inventory turnover. Target at least 8 turns annually. This stock management efficiency, so improving it optimises cash flow.
Make these KPIs visible and clear and use your morning briefings to reinforce their importance and track daily improvements.
Dashboards That Drive Immediate Action
KPIs buried in spreadsheets aren’t helpful. Turn them into action with clear dashboards, visible to the right team members.
Effective dashboards should:
- Clearly display metrics, using colours or traffic lights to highlight problem areas.
- Offer role-specific views (pickers need different data from supervisors, etc.).
- Trigger mobile alerts for urgent issues, enabling fast interventions.
Dashboards should quickly tell your team exactly where to focus, ideally within 30 seconds of viewing.
Turn Insights into Daily Habits
Standardisation and KPIs alone won’t transform your warehouse; they need to become daily routines and behaviours.
Start shifts with brief stand-ups around yesterday’s KPIs. Talk openly about successes and failures, then agree one or two immediate actions. A simple weekly root-cause review can uncover persistent issues needing deeper fixes.
Maintain a continuous improvement log, aiming to implement at least one practical improvement each week based on KPI insights. These incremental changes compound over time, delivering real efficiency gains.
Ready to put processes on autopilot and focus on growth? Start a 30-day trial of Minster Edge Core today.
