Warehouse management

When a spreadsheet stops being enough for your warehouse

A spreadsheet works fine as long as the warehouse fits in one person's head: few SKUs, few locations, a single shift. The problem doesn't show up all at once — it shows up as friction, as someone asking "is this up to date?" before trusting a number.

Three signs almost always come before the switch. The most obvious: the stock on paper doesn’t match the shelf, and you only find out at the stock-out. The second: two people can be picking the same order without knowing it, because nothing locks a slot while it’s being worked. The third is quieter: nobody flags what’s expiring until it already has, because the date lives in the head of whoever received that delivery, not in a system.

None of the three gets fixed with more discipline or a tidier sheet. They get fixed by modelling the warehouse for real: locations with capacity, picking slots that lock while in use, lots with an expiry date the system watches for you. That’s what separates a spreadsheet from a WMS — not how it looks, but which questions it can answer without anyone having to go and check.

If you're reading this because you just had one of those three uncomfortable conversations, you probably already know the answer.