Secure fulfilment – an information security perspective
Murphy's Law states that whatever can go wrong will go wrong. Nowhere is this truer than in the world of fulfilment and logistics, where the volume and complexity of everyday life gives abundant opportunity for errors and inaccuracies – all with a high level of exposure. The key is to choose partners well-acquainted with Murphy's Law, with the ability to put secure plans into place to avoid them – or stop them before they are even anticipated.
Suppose, for example, that the fulfilment house receives an urgent request to deliver certain goods, but cannot find them in the warehouse. Perhaps this is because of a malfunction in the location system or the result of simple data input error. The system says the goods are in pallet location XYZ, but location XYZ is empty. Maybe it is because the goods have just been mislocated, or maybe, due to unprecedented demand, stock has just run out but the system has not yet been updated.
Of course, the person who picked the last few items from pallet XYZ did place a replenishment request in good time, but Murphy dictates that it arrived late. When they do arrive, perhaps in the rush to finally complete the order, errors are made in the packaging and due to a mix up on printing the address labels, the wrong parcels are sent to the wrong people.
Could it happen? It might, but the likelihood of the fulfilment house's ability to manage and recover the situation to the satisfaction of all concerned will depend on the effectiveness of its system of internal control.…
Learn more
