A large number of individuals use inventory management and warehouse management interchangeably. In reality, however, both the procedures are not the same. Anyone running an eCommerce business must be aware of the differences, specifically when buying a package.
Define Warehouse Management
Warehouse management could be defined as the process of maintaining and regulating the operations within a warehouse, generally performed by managers. It begins from receiving inventory from a seller to movement of products inside the warehouse and allocating storage for each product. To put it simply, warehouse management covers everything that happens inside the warehouse.
The experts offering high-quality RFID solutions said warehouse management is essential for running businesses. If a customer cannot buy the stock he/she needs or finds the entire order process complex; there are chances he/she may switch to another supplier. This is where proper warehouse management has a role to play.
Warehouse management includes the following activities:
- Managing equipment and inventory
- Educating and training employees
- Demand forecasting
- Procuring licenses and certificates from authorities
- Tracking every day outbound and inbound shipments
- Scaling warehouse operations
- Maintaining relationships with courier services for on-time deliveries
Define Inventory Management
Inventory management involves keeping track of a business’s stocked inventory. It helps categorize inventory and deliver it to the end-users within the stipulated period. The process also keeps in mind the inventory’s dimension, weight, and amount.
Having RFID technology for inventory management or any other effective system allows eCommerce businesses to keep time lags at bay. RFID maintains an accurate record of all the products in storage, after all.
In today’s competitive world, you must have easy access to inventory data or else you would fail to offer customers excellent shopping experiences. Inventory management is perhaps the best way to carry out inventory checks without compromising potential sales.
The Difference between Inventory and Warehouse Management
- Integration
Inventory management and warehouse management are not integrated into businesses’ order fulfilment processes in the same way. Inventory management is something that happens first in warehouse management. Warehouse management, on the contrary, is associated with other aspects such as sales, distribution, supply, etc. Warehouse management is more crucial to daily operations than inventory management.
- Complexity
When compared to warehouse management, inventory management is considered quite simple. It provides people with a record of total products in storage space. On the other hand, people follow warehouse management to handle the storage solutions inside a warehouse.
Suppose a warehouse has several storage bins for the same product. The warehouse management system lets you manage all the bins, and the inventory management system tells you how many products you have in each bin.
- Control
As mentioned above, inventory management specifies the quantity of a product in the storage space. However, you have to depend on warehouse management to manage those products. Warehouse management systems allow a business to have sufficient control over the operations. Inventory management systems do not ensure much control because they provide less information.
Now that you know the difference between inventory and warehouse management, you must decide which process suits your needs the best. Although both the processes can increase efficiency and decrease manual effort, they perform in their own unique ways.
