Many warehouse owners find themselves needing to keep a larger number of items on their storage racks because of increased orders. If they are in danger of running out of storage space, they may consider moving to a larger warehouse. Before deciding on an expensive move, however, it may be possible to reorganise the existing storage space to fit more in. Your storage racks supplier is an expert at storage solutions and can help you redesign storage areas.
The layout design
The first thing to do is to reevaluate the design of the warehouse layout. There are three basic principles to the layout:
• Accessibility – how items are accessed by warehouse staff. Ideally, all goods should be accessible without moving items to get to rows behind them.
• Flow – how people move and walk around the building without having to walk around objects.
• Space – the maximum space available for storage so that they can also be an office, empty pallet storage, packing stations, toilet facilities and other areas necessary for the business operation.
These three factors will influence the layout of the warehouse.
Vertical storage
The easiest way to store extra items is to use higher storage racks to make the most of the vertical space available. As long as there is equipment to enable goods stored at higher levels to be easily and quickly accessed, this is a simple solution for storing more.
Evaluating inventory levels and where they are stored
An ‘ABC’ analysis is a way of categorising goods according to how many are sold each week.
•A-items are the best-selling ones.
•B-items are the mid-selling ones.
•C-items are the rest of the inventory.
You may find that this ABC analysis highlights the 80/20 principle – 80% of the sales are for the high demand A-items. If this is roughly the breakdown of demand, then A-items should be stored nearest the packing station to reduce picking journeys.
B- and C-items should be stored further away from the parking station. If you look at stock levels of items in these two categories, it could be that they are too high. Reducing these levels could free up space and enable you to increase stock levels of A-items.
Some warehouse inventory management systems will automatically perform an ABC analysis. Good software can automate the reordering process and keep inventory levels to the minimum by automatically reordering products when stocks get low. Ordering fewer items but more often can mean carrying less inventory, and this frees up space.
Advice from the storage racks supplier
Your storage racks supplier can help you design warehouse systems that use storage racks more efficiently. They may suggest that you narrow the aisles between racks to fit extra rows in. As long as there is sufficient space for picking trolleys and forklift trucks if they are used, you could find that the simplest solution to create more storage space is to add more storage racks.
Running out of storage space usually means that the business is doing well. Fortunately, there are strategies to deal with this issue. As a leading storage racks supplier, we can help you with this at Steely Products – fill in our contact form below and we’ll get back to you.
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