You no longer check the whole order. Only the difference.
At inbound someone counts a pallet and posts it in. At outbound someone checks the shipment before the door closes, and if something comes back, that checking starts all over again. Three times the same question, whether it is complete, and three times someone piecing the answer together. STOCKflow puts the reading next to the order and says within seconds whether it matches. If it does not, it points out which item is missing or is there too many times.
We start with one flow, inbound or outbound, and measure the time per order before and after.
Sound familiar?
These situations come back at everyone who receives and ships goods, from wholesale to manufacturing.
- At inbound a pallet is counted out and posted box by box.
- Checking whether a shipment is complete takes longer than the picking.
- A loading error only surfaces when the customer calls.
- A return sits on the dock until someone has time to work out what it is.
- The system says shipped, but nobody knows if the last box went along.
What it costs
What checking costs today
Orders per day
Minutes of checking per order
Working days per year
Per year
920 hours
Calculated with euros per hour, and with the share of the theoretical gain you actually achieve:
- Conservative
- 368 hours16,560 euros per year
- Expected
- 552 hours24,840 euros per year
- Potential
- 736 hours33,120 euros per year
Worked example based onsixty orders a day that each cost four minutes of checking, across 230 working days. Only the check at the dock, so without the digging that follows a complaint and without the return flow. Not a measurement at a customer. The numbers are adjustable: put your own situation in and the outcome follows along.
How an order flow adds up
The order matters: first make what passes readable, then put the reading moment in the right spot, and only after that connect it to your own system.
1 / Labeling at the source
What comes in gets a label at inbound, or it arrives already labeled from your supplier. The second is cheaper and saves an action, so that is what we look at first.
2 / Putting the reading moment in place
A gate at the dock, a tunnel on the conveyor or a handheld at the pallet. Which one it becomes follows from your object and your throughput and not from a preference.
3 / Comparing against what should be there
The order says what should be in it, the reading says what is. The difference is the only thing anyone still has to look at by hand.
4 / Reporting back to your own system
The connection goes live only once the physical flow is right. The other way around gives you faster wrong data, and that is no gain.
What this does and does not do
What this does and does not do
Wel
- Read the whole order in one go, instead of box by box
- Treat inbound, outbound and returns as the same flow
- Show the difference between expected and read right away
- Process a partial return without breaking the whole order open
- Receive orders from your ERP or WMS, and report the result back
Niet
- Take over your transport planning: trips and time slots stay where they are
- Invoicing or bookkeeping: that stays your ERP
- Work without labels on what you ship or receive
- Skip a check: it reads what is there, not what should be there
The gain is not in scanning faster but in no longer having to scan piece by piece. That is also why a single box sometimes stays a barcode: if throughput is low, RFID does not pay for itself there.
What changes in practice
A whole pallet inbound
What arrives goes against the purchase order in one reading. Counting out and posting in is gone.Complete at the dock
The shipment is read against the order before it goes on the trailer. The difference is the only thing anyone still looks at.The return that does not sit there
What comes back is read and is stock again straight away. No pallet on the dock waiting for someone to find time.A partial return without repair work
Three of ten back is a partial return and not an exception you have to post by hand afterwards.
What this looks like in your operation
The same solution lands differently on a production floor than in a warehouse. Pick your own situation and you will see what changes for you, and what a Proof of Value measures there.
Logistics, warehousing & distribution
Receive, count and ship goods with fewer manual scans and fewer errors. Prove it first on one inbound or outbound process.
Manufacturing & material flow
Less searching for material, less manual posting and stock that adds up. Start with a small, paid Proof of Value on one material flow.
How we prove it: a small, paid Proof of Value
One order flow, inbound or outbound, measured the old way and then with a reading moment added. Two measurements side by side: time per order, and how much was missed.
Scope
- One inbound or outbound process, one type of carrier or box
- Temporary labels, no fixed infrastructure
- One reading moment: a handheld or a simple gate at the dock
- Baseline measurement: the same flow checked by hand, with the time recorded
- The read rate per shipment type is recorded separately
Go or no-go
After the measurement you know how long an order takes with and without a reading moment, and which share of the shipment reads reliably. If that rate stays too low, because of film or metal for example, that goes in the report and you decide on it. That is the reason to measure and not a setback we paper over.
What you are probably thinking
Our ERP already posts the orders, does it not?
Your ERP knows what should happen. Whether it happened, it only knows once someone types it in, and that is exactly the action the time and the error sit in. STOCKflow supplies reality and your system stays the administration.
Our suppliers do not label.
Then we label at inbound. That is one action more at the front and one action less at every step after it. With a recurring supplier the conversation about labeling at the source is often the cheapest gain, but it is not a condition for starting.
We ship through film and that does not read.
Film and cardboard are not a problem, metal and liquid are. What is in your shipment decides whether this works, and we measure that in the Proof of Value before anything is bought.