Warehouse Management System

The brief

Stock lived in spreadsheets, so recorded counts drifted from what was physically on the shelf, and picking depended on staff remembering where things were kept.

What I did

• Mapped the building into a location scheme — zone, aisle, bay, bin — and labelled it, so every item has an address rather than a memory.
• Implemented barcode-driven receiving, putaway, picking and despatch on handheld scanners, so movements are recorded as they happen.
• Replaced the disruptive full stocktake with rolling cycle counts, spreading verification across the year.
• Integrated stock movements with the finance side so quantities and valuations reconcile without anyone re-keying them.
• Added role-based access and an audit trail on adjustments, so a correction always has a person and a reason attached.
• Trained floor staff and ran a parallel period before switching the spreadsheets off.

Outcome

• Recorded stock matches what is actually on the shelf
• New staff pick accurately without having to learn the warehouse by heart
• Stock adjustments are traceable rather than anonymous