Understanding How To Improve Your Temporary Warehouse’s Layout Efficiency

4 Ways to Improve Temporary Warehouse’s Layout Efficiency and Save Costs

A warehouse’s layout is directly proportional to its efficiency. If space is utilized well, there’s then a better chance of impacting the supply chain costs positively, and vice versa. Most of the inefficiencies that cause a slowdown in the warehouse, however, go unnoticed, with most companies paying dearly for the same. The first step to improving your warehouse’s efficiency starts by looking into its layout. Outlined below are some of the factors that hurt warehouses’ layout efficiency, and how to go around it.

1. Chaos In The Receiving Area

This is a common issue with many warehouses today. The goods-In section of the warehouse is always buzzing with activity with space seemingly too little for such. Although it might not seem like a good idea, allocating enough floor area/space for the reception area would be a great way to improve efficiency in the warehouse. As long as there’s enough space in the reception area, getting the goods in the designated floor spaces will be much easier. This translates to improved efficiency and cost savings.

2. Twisty Pickers

Transport and motion are among the key wastes of every warehouse that ought to be addressed. Any business dealing with supply chain practices knows how much time and resources can be wasted when trying to move goods from one point to the other. Poorly laid pick faces are often to blame for the excess motion and transport as workers have to wade through the truckloads while assembling orders and such.

Most companies, however, have a well laid and efficient picking and removal route when they start. Although it seems to work at first, such an order doesn’t last for long, causing chaos at both points. Nonetheless, reviewing pick and drop paths from time to time, and rearranging storage locations when the need arises can help improve efficiency in the long run. Although it might not seem like much, reviewing pick paths and ensuring storage locations are easily accessible can help save time and labor-related costs.

3. Reduce Times An Inventory Item Has To Be Touched

A lot of money goes to repeated handling of the same inventory item. If dealing with inventory items that move quickly, you might as well consider putting them on the floor. Avoid keeping these in the floor stock to allow easy picking and dropping. As a golden rule in warehousing, reducing the number of times an item has to be touched (between receiving and dispatch) can help bring operational costs significantly. It improves efficiency too.

4. Create Cross Aisles

Although a vast warehouse might look good from a distance, the setup will hurt the warehouse’s layout efficiency significantly. The layout should make it easier for operatives to move around and about the warehouse with ease. You can make this possible by creating cross-aisles with a top-down view. Moving between various aisles or blocks will be much easier than a long walk down an aisle.

These are the four factors that inflate the cost of running a warehouse and increased inefficiency as well. Although the points discussed above might seem weighty, it’s easy for good work to be eroded over time – in this case, the warehouse layout.

Learn to re-evaluate and reconfigure your warehouse layout to suit various needs regularly. Changes are necessary to improve processes in the same while reducing operational costs.

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