Warehouses are vital cogs in the supply chain. Businesses in different industries rely on them to operate efficiently and to meet customer demands. Therefore, the efficiency of warehousing is crucial for commerce, and design plays an important role in fulfilling both short and long-term objectives.
The warehouse design or layout is about the distribution process of both the internal and external space of the facility. An optimized warehouse design boosts overall efficiency by ensuring that the movement of goods between functions is streamlined. Thus, the better a warehouse is designed, the more efficient operations will be.
If you’re buying or planning to build a warehouse, you should prioritize its design to improve your business. There are specifics you have to look into to have a solid supply chain facility for your business. Learn those important aspects you need to consider to have an optimized warehouse design in this blog.
Flow of goods
Warehouses are like the revolving doors of goods in the supply chain. Goods continuously go in and out of them, and it’s essential to have a smooth inflow and outflow strategy for those goods. A key part of implementing an effective flow of goods in a warehouse is its design.
APL Architects Philippines and all reputable architecture firms out there know how important an optimized design is for warehousing. Therefore, the architect considers the production process an important starting point when configuring the warehouse layout when building one. The type of products entering and exiting the warehouse determines the process and is linked to the layout configuration.
Product rotation is also part of the flow of goods in a warehouse. Therefore, you must also determine how many times a product goes through the entire production process to optimize your warehouse’s layout.
Inventory tracking
Tracking your inventory is a critical part of the warehouse production process. Having ineffective inventory tracking will cause problems such as overly expensive inventory costs. That’s why you must consider it when designing your warehouse.
An optimized warehouse design should allow easy tracing of all products flowing in and out of the facility. It should also allow workers to have easy access to inventory and monitor stock levels.
Your warehouse should be designed according to your desired stock level. This will let your business meet minimum storage costs and fulfill commitments, aka customer demand. Your warehouse layout should be optimized to ensure fast and proper replenishment of stock.
Storage system
The design of your warehouse should also be optimized to accommodate an effective storage system for the goods you’ll keep in it. You have to determine the storage requirements of your products before installing storage equipment inside your warehouse.
Factors such as direct access to unit loads and maximum space optimization must be considered for an optimal warehouse design for storage. You have to make sure that it’ll be easy to store and sort items and provide enough space for them. All spaces prioritizing storage must have enough room to properly arrange and fit goods according to their size and shape.
Warehouse picking
Warehouse picking refers to the process of retrieving individual items from the warehouse inventory to fulfill customers’ orders. It’s simple as a concept but can be quite complex in practice. Thus, an optimized warehouse design will make it smoother, more accurate, and more efficient.
To design a warehouse optimized for picking, you should consider the following:
- The method you’ll use for generating and assigning picking lists,
- The distance the picking team need to travel,
- How your picking team will know the location of items to be picked and,
- Will you opt to employ batch picking?
Your workers
Besides material resources, you should also consider human resources. Their workflow and fulfillment of designated tasks are affected by the warehouse design as well. In addition, there’s also the concern for their safety, since working in a warehouse has its hazards and risks.
The warehouse layout must use the business’s sufficient capacity to count on the workers and its efficiency in carrying out tasks with maximum safety. Therefore, your facility should promote safety in all aspects of your warehouse operations.
Wrapping up
The warehouse design affects how the business utilizing the facility operates. So overall, it’s essential to value every aspect of warehouse operations to have an optimized design to help your business thrive.