Warehouses were once considered as an evil with four walls and a bunch of racks. Most organizations treat the warehouse as liability. Nowadays, warehousing has become an important element in commercial enterprises, which has brings benefits to the organizations.


Introduction


Warehousing was once considered as a liability to the organization as it would cost the companies much expense. Previously, in the time in which just-in time gain fame in industries, warehousing was considered a weak link in the supply chain and was thought to demise. However, currently the concept of warehousing is changing as it is now gaining an important part in the supply chain.


Discussion


The role of warehousing in some years before has been thought as a burden to many of the companies as it is seen to be costly to the process of supply chain. With the existence of the technology, it has been a thought that the lesser the number of the warehouse and the smaller the warehouses the better. The supply chain management has been discovering ways to improve the process of supply chain while reducing the transaction cost. And to this warehouse has tried to be eliminated in the scenario of the companies. Previously, warehouse has been thought of as a burden to the companies as it requires proper management and maintenance. Storage system is also needed especially for perishable goods.


However, many of the companies today has discovered that warehousing is a source of competitive advantage  for companies and has find a new role for the warehouse. For such, Nabisco is one of the examples of companies that believe that warehouse is a source of competitive advantage for their company (2001)


Past researches has thought that warehousing will diminish over time with the presence of technology and with the popularity of just-in time delivery in which products are assemble only when there is a demand to reduce warehouse costs of storing the materials. However, warehousing has instead grown in demand with the presence of this Internet. The e-commerce has realized their need to go through warehouses.


Several years ago, companies thought that with a great internal supply chain and the smaller the warehouses the more the competitive the business is in the marketplace. It has been thought that with the presence of e-commerce and the tight pressures to squeeze costs out of the supply chain, it’s no longer enough to be efficient within your company’s four walls. Companies today need an efficient supply chain from end to end, that is, from the purchase of raw materials to the point where product reaches the consumer or end user. Any failure at any point along this supply chain process can cause to failure to the whole company.


 


However, instead, warehousing has gain its prominence with the development of e-commerce as increasingly the supply chain are now relying more on warehousing. With the more demanding consumers these days which generally demand for a faster delivery of products, warehouse has come back to importance as with the availability of the products demanded by the consumers stored in the warehouses the faster is the delivery of these products. With the products stored in the warehouses, warehouses have the ability to deliver these goods on time as what the customer demanded. 


Many warehouses are ramping up to meet e-commerce needs by installing new fulfillment equipment and investing in other technologies. Picking and shipping methods are being upgraded, too. Customer service has become of the utmost importance in today’s environment, and warehouses increasingly are being tasked to manage call centers. In addition, with the increased returns generated by the Internet, they are playing a lead role in developing and executing reverse-logistics programs.


In addition, warehousing is becoming prominent as more and more activities are occurring within them. It has been observed by several companies that many of the organizations are performing their warehousing functions as well as their corporate function within the warehouse. These functions included back office operations, customer service, call centers, accounting departments and editorial functions like producing manuals that go into packaging for consumer electronics products.


 


Conclusion


Thus it can be noticed that many of these successful companies are doing warehousing. Also, with the customer pressures, warehousing has gain a new role to many organizations. With these reasons, warehousing that was once thought as a liability to the company has become an important part of the companies. Warehousing has increasing prominent to the success of any company.


 


 


 


 


 



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