A warehouse facilities manager is like a field marshal because he has so many potential enemies to combat. These threats range from the worst, namely fire, to hygiene and cleanliness at the bottom end of the risk scale. In between you have all those risks that could be grouped under the security umbrella, typically including thieves and arsonists. Any issue that could affect the value of stored products, such as pestiferous creatures, soiled goods from contaminated air and inadequate and unduly costly heating and humidity problems are all enemies.
In most cases it would fall to the warehouse manager to shoulder the entire responsibility to manage these tasks so it is little wonder that some stressed warehouse managers look to outsourcing certain tasks like security to specialists, leaving them free to concentrate on regular maintenance tasks. But there must also be oversight of the managers themselves because when it comes to security they could be in on any caper, as was the case for a sweet manufacturer where the warehouse manager purloined £0.5 million of sweets.
Concentrating some minds at present must be the worst nightmare for all warehouse managers, namely fire, given the recent fire damage to the fully automated Ocado Andover warehouse which reduced the purpose built £45 million premises to a charred, tangled ruin. As warehouse fires go it was not the most costly; that unenviable record went to the MOD stores at Donnington when back in the early 1980s a fire cost about £167 million. Although equipped with sprinklers, they failed to activate, and there was speculation that internal arson was involved. The causes of the Ocado blaze are not yet known but it was equipped with its in-house, award-winning sprinkler system. Ocado was quick to point out that the property was comprehensively insured, including stock and business interruption losses, but any claim could be affected were it to transpire that its sprinkler system had failed in some way. The fire may also have implications for the way such automated, order-picking warehouses are designed. The dense nature of the grid system of storage used at Andover led fire fighters to comment that it was not made to allow them to move around easily.
Such fires highlight the crucial necessity to ensure that fire sprinklers are regularly serviced, backed up by CCTV and warning alarms directly connected to police and/or fire stations. If nefarious intruders are detected outside a building then there could be time to prevent any arson attacks. At huge stores housing multi-million pounds worth of stocks of volatile products, like aerosols, it might be wise to have one’s own fire-fighting facilities permanently on site, with sections of storage racks protected by wire mesh barriers to contain rocketing, burning products that could quickly spread the fire. Current UK guidance on sprinklers only applies to newly-built warehouses over 20,000 mt2, suggesting that a change is overdue.
If the unfortunate victim of a fire, but where the damage has been limited enough, one quick recovery avenue would be to consider temporary structures if on-site space permits. These range from the quickest to install, airdomes, through to frame-supported fabric structures and pre-fabricated buildings. Available in all sizes and relocatable, they can be hired, and planning permission may not be necessary, depending on storage duration and location.
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