What are the most important aspects to
consider when designing a warehouse?
E
very warehouse has individual needs, products
and processes; therefore, each facility requires an
equally unique design and solution. A warehouse
design that works perfectly for a facility that ships primarily
full-pallet orders may not be as efficient in one that ships a
variety of products in limited quantities.
During the critical step of warehouse design, order analytics
help develop the right solution and layout. Designers and
planners analyze the way products are moving today, while
looking toward the future, to determine the right amount of
automation necessary to gain efficiencies without incurring
huge capital cost. The ultimate design should consider the
capabilities of both a warehouse execution system (WES)
and automation.
Warehouse Layout
If you have a large number of pallets of products, it may
seem like the best way to store those pallets would be on
the floor. However, a floor storage design might require a
warehouse with a footprint equal to multiple football fields
long, which is most likely not cost effective. Not to men-
tion, efficiency could decrease dramatically because of the
time needed to travel across the warehouse to pick orders.
Additionally, many products may not have the sales volume
to justify their excess storage space on the floor. Thus, you
tend to have a lot of product spread across a large area that
is available for picking, which is where automation can play
a greater role.
Warehouse System Design
FIFO product rotation is an important consideration for
companies, especially within the food industry, that deal
with perishable goods. Moreover, consumer packaged goods
manufacturers prefer not to ship newer products to retail-
ers before they clear older stock off store shelves. A WES
offers a variety of options for optimal inventory replace-
ment. For instance, the system can initiate replenishment
of faster-moving products when space becomes available
for a pallet on the rack. For slower moving products, users
can set up an algorithm where the system does not trigger
replenishment until a future order contains that product.
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The Satellite Review
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