It’s interesting to see a typical journey of a customer inventory throughout a long distance move. The mechanics are the same in the US, Canada, Brazil or anywhere in the world. Regardless of the company and country specifics, all movers face the same challenges - avoiding missing pieces and preventing insurance claims. Voxme now offers two platforms to help a moving company establish an inventory control process according to their budget and operational capabilities:
It’s the very versatility and the simplicity of Voxme platforms that allows the likes of JK Moving Services, Piece of Cake Moving & Storage, Flatrate, Roadway and many others to establish an efficient inventory control process.
Let’s look at the main operational steps first and then see how the above platform help you handle the relevant operations with more efficiency:
1
A local crew does a pick up and brings the load to a local warehouse. Sometimes the same crew picks up multiple loads before arriving at the warehouse.
2
The packed pieces get palletized or loaded into storage vaults. Invariably large items get stored separated in designated oversized items areas. Pallets and storage vaults locations get recorded in a warehouse system and a pallet/storage label is produced to identify the job.
3
The pieces are loose loaded into a trailer going to the next company’s warehouse.
4
Upon arrival at the next hub the pieces get palletized or loaded into storage vaults.
5
The pieces get loaded to a delivery truck, which may or may not belong to the company.
6
And finally the shipment is delivered at destination.
Leaving stress on these hard travelled boxes outside of this discussion, one can see why interstate and long-distance movers are so keen on getting an inventory control system. At a minimum, there are 6 points of inventory transfer in a described process and traditionally very little computer power controlling the process. And that leads to the “missing pieces” curse that all movers are all too familiar with.
How do we know all this? Because some of these movers have turned to Voxme to help set up a digital, barcode based inventory control system to help them be as efficient as possible given the increased volumes and shrinking move sizes.
In a nutshell what Voxme system does is blend the right doze of technology into the established process. In practical terms it means:
1
Printing labels for the crews going to pickups.
2
Dispatching inventory jobs to the crews’ tablets and smartphones – that’s right, smartphones. No need to buy any special equipment.
3
Allowing the pickup crews to label boxes and furniture and quickly create a packing list with the sufficient level of content details, preexisting damage descriptions and photos to avoid mix-ups and insurance claims.
4
Printing more labels in the warehouse when the crews come back from pickup.
5
Scanning pieces in a warehouse, be it onto pallets, storage vaults or oversized items areas and printing full size pallet and storage labels.
6
Scanning inventory out of the warehouse into a trailer (loose or entire pallets).
7
Repeating the scan-in and scan-out process at the next hub.
8
Dispatching delivery jobs to one’s own or external drivers for electronic delivery bingo check-off.
Does it mean that you have to do all of the above? Absolutely not! You can start with simple digital inventory and go from there. Talk to us and we’ll help you add efficiency and control to your established paper based processes. That’s what we’ve been doing for the last 20 years.
Head office:
28 Finch Avenue West, Unit 201,Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M2N 2G7
