What is the difference between warehouse management and inventory management? Basically, it comes down to specificity. What do I mean? I’ll show you by comparing and contrasting the similarities and differences of warehouse management and inventory management below:
Similarities
Both warehouse management and inventory management involve:
- Monitoring product quantities.
- Cycle counting (checking the quantities of some products, but not all, at one time).
- Often using barcodes to track parts and products.
- Picking, packing, and shipping items.
- Managing multiple locations.
- Receiving orders into inventory.
Differences
- Warehouse management divides warehouses into many compartments and bins while inventory management takes a broader approach to tracking inventory by location.
- Warehouse management allows you to find specific items in a warehouse while inventory management simply informs you that they are somewhere in that warehouse.
- Warehouse management is often connected to inventory management software, but it’s not a standalone service because of its supportive nature.
I hope this helps clear up any confusion there may be on this topic. If you’d like to start using powerful inventory management software and warehouse management software, sign up for a demo of Fishbowl Inventory and also see what Fishbowl Mobile can do for you.
Robert Lockard is a copywriter with Fishbowl. He writes for several blogs about inventory management, manufacturing, QuickBooks, and small business. Fishbowl is the #1-requested manufacturing and warehouse management software for QuickBooks users. Robert enjoys running, reading, writing, spending time with his wife and children, and watching movies.
Nice Post Robert. Really nice description about the difference between Inventory management and Warehouse management.
An efficient interaction between Inventory management system and Warehouse management system helps a company to efficiently manage its product or services according to the availability of the raw material and thus, helps in maintaining the ratio of demand to supply for better customer service.
Read a case study on warehousing management here.
In short, inventory management involves the goods or products process and warehousing management involves the receipt, storage and all factors of inventory.