I enjoyed the recent white paper from Motorola on Warehouse Management: A Quick Reference Guide To Improving Inventory Accuracy For Perfect Orders because it was short and got straight to the point. Defining the perfect order as an order that is
- delivered on time and in full,
- in compliance with a customer’s three-way match (invoice, PO, and receipt), and
- free of quality issues,
it goes on to say that multiple factors contribute to imperfect orders and that the most important starting point is a value stream map that identifies where the most errors are occurring in your current operations.
It then presents some straight-forward resolutions to common operational challenges that you can use to quickly increase your perfect order accuracy. Examples include:
| Operational Challenge | Resolution |
| Manual Order Processing & Improvement | automation technology, RFID, barcodes, and mobile printers |
| Picking Methods | hands-free wearable computers, scan verification, and voice recognition |
| Software Systems | central database/ERP, WMS module, continuous training and improvement |
| Labor | include employees in improvement processes, reward workers for achieving goals, communicate regularly, and hold everyone accountable for following the right processes |