Pack Stage: How to Assess Your Fulfillment Efficiency
When considering a shipping solution, it’s important to begin by establishing a baseline understanding of your company’s current fulfillment operation. This baseline can provide clarity as to where you are losing money in the fulfillment process so you can focus on fixing what’s wrong, while substantially reducing your shipping costs.
Critical Pack Questions & Elements to Consider
A critical stage of the fulfillment process is the pack stage. During this stage, there are a few critical questions to ask and elements to consider.
The primary question you want to ask is whether your business is currently using shipping software to automate your packing process? This establishes whether your current fulfillment process is using software and not warehouse employees to answer the “which box” question.
Another element to consider is if you are using pack verification software. This software enables you to manage your workflow and provides real time accuracy of your shipments and inventory levels.
Additionally, does your packing process involve automated parcel consolidation or packing optimization to enable consolidating orders to ensure regulation of excess packing volume and use of shipping materials? Packing optimization is a critical tool to reduce your shipping costs by ensuring every order is packed in the right box or carton.
Important Pack KPIs to Track
In addition to considering these critical questions and elements, it’s equally important to understand the KPIs that can help you further assess the baseline status of your fulfillment operation. For example, metrics specific to the pack stage can include:
- The number of packed orders per employee per hour
- Pick-pack role efficiency in the warehouse
Tracking these vital KPIs can help you better understand your current pack operation and identify opportunities for improvement to scale your business.
The list of packing questions and metrics worth considering doesn’t end here. To learn more about how you can establish a greater understanding of your pack operation and how to improve going forward, take ShipHawk’s Fulfillment Scorecard assessment.
