As global warming increases, it’s more important than ever to go green. Even though individuals can make a big difference by recycling paper and plastic, businesses can make an even bigger difference. After all, businesses produce waste on a much larger scale than the average person does.
That being said, how can a business go green? Well, one of the easiest ways to go green is to stop keeping track of everything on paper and move your system online with a warehouse management system.
Going Green by Reducing Paper Waste
A WMS can help your company dramatically reduce its amount of paper waste each year. Just think of how much paper you could save by keeping track of your inventory, your sales, your receipts, and your shipping online rather than printing everything off!
Along with saving trees by using less paper, you are also saving the paper that paper comes wrapped in, and the cardboard boxes that those come in. If your company has multiple warehouses, having your company go paperless could make a serious impact.
Managing Inventory
A WMS can also help you go green by helping you to manage your inventory better and more efficiently. This might not seem like something that helps preserve the environment, but think of what more efficient inventory storage would mean. Having a good inventory system can keep your company from having overstock of items, which can also free up more room in your warehouse.
Knowing where all of your inventory is and where it’s going will also let you reuse materials like pallets and storage shelving, so you don’t have to waste space and purchase more storage materials when you don’t need them.
Reduce Energy Consumption
Another great way to go green is to reduce the amount of energy that your company uses, which you can do by implementing a WMS in your warehouses to help with overall efficiency.
For instance, your WMS can optimize your inventory flow so that employees don’t have to keep going back to the same areas. If you use motion sensitive lighting in your warehouse, not constantly visiting all corners of the building will cut down on energy usage. If you use forklifts in your warehouse, a more efficient inventory layout can save on gas consumption as well.
Recycle and Reuse
As everyone knows, one of the best ways to go green is by recycling materials and reusing others. You can recycle more of your company’s materials by using your WMS to keep track of which materials get used each day that are recyclable, and directing them to a recycling area. Quite often the reason that company’s don’t recycle is simply because recyclable materials get overlooked and thrown away, rather than recycled.
A WMS can also help you become more aware of materials that can be reused in your company, such as packing and shipping materials. Your WMS can help you to keep track of these materials, when they can be reused, and where the materials can be taken so that they can be reused more easily.
