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Despite the fact that ‘Sophia’, a humanoid robot, was granted citizenship by Saudi Arabia and the growing fear and trepidation among retail and warehouse workers in the past decade, the integration of robotics and automation into warehouse processes is hardly the job “Robot Job Stealing Apocalypse” it has been made out to be.

The most essential core component of any good warehouse efficiency strategy begins and ends with quality control. Your team may not be responsible for the quality of the products you deliver, or for the commitment to customer satisfaction that comes from products, but they are just as responsible as the manufacturer when it comes to the quality of their work. Each product is handled by your team as it passes through your distribution center on their way to retailers, consumers, or to another destination.

There is nothing quite as satisfying in a distribution center as a well-balanced inventory. Orders arrive, orders are shipped, and your fulfillment and delivery flows consistently like the tides. Inventory does not become overstock to take up space and have a negative impact on cash flow. With excellent inventory control, being out of stock of any item is a rare occasion.

Sadly, the perfectly balanced inventory is somewhat of a Zen-like ideal: The moment you identify the inventory as ‘balanced’, it morphs. The best you can do to manage the factors that affect inventory to control overstock or short-stocked items on the warehouse floor.

With some careful planning and a few deft adjustments to inventory management processes, you eventually establish a balance that you can maintain.

How can this be accomplished?

Consumers were projected to spend upwards of $682 billion during the 2017 holiday season, with 51% shopping online, according to the National Retail Federation. Thanks to e-commerce giant Amazon, consumers also expected their packages to arrive within one to two days, regardless of the retailer or parcel carrier. To keep up with this demand (which can be substantial all year long, not just during the holiday season!) and get packages out the door faster, warehouses and distribution centers across the country are implementing dimensioning technology to gain efficiencies.

Major shipping carriers like FedEx, UPS, and USPS have adjusted their policies regarding charging based on parcel dimensions vs. weight, setting the industry standard. Cubing or dimensioning solutions allow the warehousing industry to capture data and proportions of products so shipping costs can be predicted with much greater accuracy.