Independent Warehouse Operational Audits

The objective of a warehouse audit is to highlight aspects of systems or operational performance that could be improved. Generic workbooks have been developed to enable a speedy review of the operational and administration procedures within the warehouse; including the use of systems to perform these procedures. For a particular audit these will be tailored to the warehouse being reviewed.

Examples of generic workbooks are as follows:

• Purchase order creation
• Goods receipt
• Inventory control
• Customer order creation
• Picking and despatch
• Systems architecture
  

A typical audit will involve:

• Tailoring of the workbooks
• On-site review, including interviews with key personnel and shadowing of key operations
• Preparation of the audit report
• The results of the audit will be presented to the relevant warehouse supervisors and management and a workshop will be organised to work through the recommendations

The final audit report will:

• Detail the operational and administration processes currently in use
• Highlight the system functionality available, but not currently being exploited and the projected benefits and costs of utilising this functionality
• Propose changes that can be effected with current systems and the benefits such changes could provide
• Propose customisations to improve the efficiency of the operation and the benefits these changes could effect.