1) VALUE CHAIN

a) Who do you source your goods from?

(Supplier/Manufacturer)
i) How many different suppliers/manufacturers?
ii) Who handles the inbound logistics?

b) What do you source? (Raw material/Finished

Good)
c) If they are a manufacturing unit-i) Is the procurement unit adjacent to the manufacturing facility?
ii) What manufacturing system do you follow? (JIT/Kanban/Others)
iii) Is there a continuous movement of finished goods from the
facility or is it stored?
iv) Who do you supply to? (Another manufacturer/Central
Warehouse/ Retailers)
v) What are the customer touch points within the value chain?

d) If not a manufacturing unit

i) Do you directly deliver received goods or is there any value
add?
ii) Who do you supply to? (Another manufacturer/ Central
Warehouse/ Distributors/ Retailers/ Consumers)
iii) Are your operations local market focussed or global market
focussed?
iv) What are the customer touch points within the value chain?

2) PROCESS
a) How many warehouses do you have?
i) What is the proportion of third party warehouses?

ii) What is the proportion of company owned warehouses?

b) Where are the warehouses located in India?

c) What is the size of each warehouse
d) Could you give us some details around the
warehousing strategy employed?
i) Is it a single Tier warehouse
ii) Is it multi-tiered? How many tiers?

e) What is the inventory management strategy?

i) Is it supply driven?
ii) Is it customer driven?

f) What is the overall growth of the warehousing

operations? (Growth of shipments/value of goods)

g) How many shipments do you handle on average?

(Per month)
h) What are the total number of employees at your
warehouse?
i) Proportion of full time and contract employees

i) What is the overall expenditure for operating the

warehouse?
i) What is the expenditure per unit?
ii) What is the expenditure per case of shipment?

j) How many customers do you cater to? (not endusers, but end of supply chain)
k) Could you please explain the inward operations in
detail?
i) Is the process automated in any way?
ii) Do you measure the weight of inbound goods?

l) How does the Quality check process happen?

i) Does it include barcode scanning process

m) Is there a Put Away system?

i) How do you store items in the warehouse (sortation system)
ii) Any other special handling needs?

n) Could you please walk us through the Picking

process at your warehouse
i) How do you receive orders? Online/manual?
ii) What is the usual order line?
iii) What is the order picking mechanism (Each Pick/ Case Pick/
Batch Pick)

o) How do you combine the picked orders?

p) How do you pack the goods to be shipped?
i) Is the shipping in-house of outsourced to a third party provider?

q) Could you walk us through the shipping process?

i) Who is the intended customer of the shipped goods?
ii) How does it reach end customer from there?
iii) Batch Shipping/Order Shipping? What kind of sorting system do
you employ for shipping?
iv) What kind of shipping? Air/Surface
v) Variety of SKUs handled?
vi) Size in mm (l x b x h) (min / max / 80%)
vii) Average Weight (can be in brackets of 0-5 Kgs; 5 10 Kgs;
etc)

viii) How do you package goods Palettes/ Cases/ Individual

ix) What is the barcoding strategy?
x) Any other special handling needs?

r) What is the storage strategy employed at the

warehouse?
i) Do you slot materials manually/ system generated?
ii) Do you re-slot goods, basis various business conditions?

s) How many days of inventory in hand do you

usually keep?
t) How much does the demand typically vary from
the demand of goods

3. OTHERS
a) Any WMS/IMS employed at your warehouse?
b) Is there internet access at your warehouse?
i) Are you using laptops/tablets/mobile devices at your location?
For what?

c) What are the pain areas for each of the process?

ITC

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