An efficient warehouse is an integral part of an efficient supply chain. Moving goods in and out with an easy retrieval system can take the pressure off other areas and improve your bottom line. A productive warehouse relies heavily on several key aspects:

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Proper shelving, proper storage, proper packaging, well trained staff and reduced risk.

The goal in any warehouse is to improve efficiency and reduce costs. Typically improving efficiency does reduce overall costs. Whether you have a multi-channel warehouse or a small warehouse making some simple changes can easily help get your warehouse in a good place.

Shipment has easily become one of the highest cost fulfillment activities in supply chain management. An efficient warehouse is a key aspect in reducing shipping costs. The cost of shipping is not the only thing on the rise. The cost of labour has also been on the increase.

An efficient warehouse can get you more out of each labour hour. You cannot avoid the increase in labour costs but you can make sure that you are getting more out of the labour costs.

There are five simple steps that you can take to improve your warehouse efficiency.

Review Your Efficacy

Have you taken a really good look at your warehousing activities? You cannot improve what you have yet to measure.

What happens in many cases is new processes and plans are layered over old activities, things pile up and become confusing. In many cases the best route is to review and get rid of what does not work.

Shelving is an important part of of any warehouse and on some occasions the need to move up to better quality arises but instead of pulling out the old and installing new some managers change half or part of the shelving. This leaves one part of the warehouse more efficient than the other. An assessment of where you stand can help weed out the changes you need to make.

Outgoing and Inbound Freight

One of the most expensive activities of any organisation is the coming and going of products. Making this activity more efficient while reducing risk to both products and your labour force can pay off. There are a few considerations when it comes to inbound and outbound freight every management team should pay attention to.

Packaging, slotting and location.

In an ideal setting you are going to be using packaging that is easy to construct, deconstruct and can be moved easily. Pallets and pallet collars fit the bill. They are effective in reducing the amount of labour needed to package goods for movement.

Pallets and pallet collars are also ideal for slotting purposes. They fit easily on shelves, can be stacked and make ideal vessels for a full range of goods.

Inbound and outbound activities are ideally suited to be on opposite ends of the warehouse BUT in the event your warehouse is not large enough you can still take advantage of this idea by setting up different days for inbound and outbound.

Training Your Managers

Training your managers in how to effectively manage the warehouse is also a big step in improving the warehouse efficiency. Proper training can go a long way in making sure your warehouse is working as it should.

Identifying the weak links that can benefit from more training is important. Well trained managers and workers can easily help improve the efficiency of the warehouse but it goes beyond training.

You have to be able to also have an information sharing plan in place. Having an easy to use sharing system coupled with risk reducing packaging and practices can easily help to improve the efficiency of your warehouse.

Commitment to Improvement Through Investment

Another step is to commit to improving the efficiency by being willing to invest in improvements. A lot of organisations want the improvements but they do not want to invest.

There are small investments like changing your packaging from crates to pallets and then there are larger investment like inventory control systems. They both will help to improve your efficiency.

If you cannot afford the complete overhaul of your warehouse and your budget only allows for certain changes one of the best, inexpensive changes you can make is to change your packaging system

When you reduce risk you increase profits. The right packaging will reduce the risk of loss to your inventory and will reduce the risk to your labour force.

Simplify! Reduce Interactions!

Your inventory is likely your largest asset. Simplifying how it is moved, stacked and stored can help not only reduce risk to your inventory but also make your warehouse more efficient. Not to sound like a broken record BUT your packaging plays a role in how many times a container has to be touched and by how many people.

The idea is simple, the less interaction with the goods the better. Pallets and pallet collars fit this theory perfectly. It takes one person to construct pallet collars, move goods stacked and the same person can deconstruct the pallet collars.

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