How to improve warehouse management

Owning and managing a warehouse, no matter its size, is not as easy as it looks. Even small storage units need to be organised and checked every once in a while, so that you can find what you’re looking for, and also to prevent any sort of damage. Now, if you own a warehouse or are planning on acquiring one, this is also true, and there are also some complexities that need to be taken into account for successful management. The principle, as always, is: keep it all organised.

Organise the space

Invest time and effort in organising. But really organising! The only way to make the management of a storage space is by making sure that everything is in its right place—and that you can find it easily.

Start from the beginning: establish what is going to go where. You can use bin locations or any sort of method that lets you configure different zones within the warehouse. Each of those will have a type of product. That way, you or your employees will begin to know where to begin looking for something, or where to put it, rightaway. The bigger the warehouse, the most important this is.

Within said zones, areas or locations, make sure that every aisle, shelf and unit are correctly labelled. Get the best signs and bollards in Melbourne and place them where everyone can see them. As for the labelling system itself, and even in order to differentiate between aisles or shelves, you can use an easy code such as colours, to make it even easier for people to find a particular spot, and then remember it.

And don’t forget that there must be enough space for circulation. Though emphasised by Covid-19, space, hygiene and security have always been crucial, particularly in places such as warehouses, where heavy items are manipulated and transported. There may also be certain products that need to be in a fresh (breathable) space, for instance. Ensure you know the requirements of everything you store, the dangers that could come with it and how you can prevent them.

Organise schedules

This will also contribute to preventing dangers and damage, and to making your storage space a more comfortable one to work in. There are two types of schedules that need to be organised, the products’ and the employees’.

Staff should be thoroughly trained in what they’re going to do, and their schedules should be clear so that they simply do not bump into each other or end up having to take care of things they are not trained for.

For products, you can implement techniques such as cross decking, which consists in scheduling the arrival and delivery of certain items in a way that they don’t even have to enter the warehouse: as soon as they get there, they leave to be distributed.