Goods Dispatch Stages
Planning for Order Deliveries
- Planning for the daily dispatches of goods involves the following actions:
- Know and confirm the daily orders to be prepared and issued
- Sort the list of orders to be prepared.
- Assign the orders to the transporters and indicate the time during which they are scheduled to pick up the goods.
- Schedule loading dock occupancy.
- Provide the necessary space for the goods in the temporary storage area next to the dispatch docks.
Goods consolidation and sorting
- Goods consolidation consists of combining and grouping together items from different storage locations for their subsequent shipment.
- Ordinarily, an adjacent space within the dispatch area is reserved for this exercise.
- If the goods are picked in a disorganized way, good consolidation exercise may take a longer duration.
Documentation and Goods conditioning check
- Goods dispatch represents the last contact between the goods and the warehouse. During this process the final documentation verification should be done in order to prevent errors and ensure that customers receive what they ordered for.
- It is important to check the various associated documents (goods receipt, picking order, delivery note, road map, waybill, etc.).
- Additionally, ensure that the goods ordered for are actually packed or palletized and well labelled. The weight and volume of the goods should be ascertained to be in line with transporters requirements.
- Other tasks that may be performed in this goods dispatch phase are the personalization of shipments and the assembly of kits or packs (very common with promotional products).
Loading of the goods
- Before loading the parcels onto the corresponding truck, the following actions have to be taken:
- Verify that the truck waiting to be loaded is the right one.
- Place the merchandise on the truck, balancing out the loads. In addition, the trailer should be securely anchored to the loading docks. This is usually done using handling equipment, such as pallet trucks or forklifts, and should be carried out with great care.
- Hand the documentation to the transporter to be signed.