It’s very common for companies to run out of warehouse space and it gets frustrating, the racks and the bins get blocked. Also, you can’t figure out where to put things and this scenario really hampers productivity. You can’t let this continue and contemplate the following options:-
1. Go vertical
Increasing the roof or adding extra levels of pallet racks will increase the storage space to a great extent. But you would have to consider the engineering limitations and construction regulations and laws along with the possible exorbitant cost.
2. Upgrade Storage Medium
You can also upgrade the storage medium to high-density equipment. For example, you can upgrade to double-deep racks if you are currently using single deep racks but that requires forklifts and other equipment to load pallets.
3. Rent extra storage
Because the most flexible option to scale up the operations quickly is renting extra space but it is exorbitantly costly in the long run.
4. Shift to a bigger warehouse
Shifting to a bigger warehouse might solve the problem for a time being. Although a bigger space will not act as a substitute for inefficient storage arrangements.
But do you need to opt for these options or you can store more material in the same limited space?
But do you need to opt for these options or you can store more material in the same limited space as the warehouse?
To accomplish this, you must ensure optimal warehouse space utilization. You can accomplish this by utilizing a Warehouse Management System (WMS) that can track all locations and items stored with their quantities. Also, WMS will know the weight of each item, the size of each item, the case, and the physical restrictions of each item and ensure that storage is organized in a way that requires the least amount of space.
You can accomplish this through some quintessential in-built operational features.
Capacity utilization
Improving the space utilization score through automated analysis of spread out stock, size of products, department space, vertical space, aisle widths, depth of storage which involves-
- You can free identification of areas that up for other stock
- Allotting appropriately sized bins for different products
- Right-Sizing Your Slots
ABC analysis
This is by far the most effective approach to reduce unwanted inventory through a prioritization mechanism allotted to different SKUs.
You can categorize the SKUs as A, B, C according to the value they add to the business. Such as A being the most valuable and C being the least. The idea is to channelize the resources towards the most important units.
You can define upper and lower stocking thresholds based on risk appetite.
Multiple units of measures
Support multiple units of measures and increase operational efficiency in making different stocking, storing, and shipping UOMs. Many products consume little time and effort for being stored in a limited space like the typical ones that are received in a box, stored in a box, and shipped in a box, unlike some other products which require different.
- Purchasing UOM
- Standard measurement UOM
- Sales UOM
Example- We brought wires of a certain length and then cut them into pieces for selling.
Transfers – bin to bin, location to location
Get an instantaneous view of the material position and keep inventory balances accurate by figuring out the most suitable bins and locations for transfers.
Ensure lean inventory
Enable inventory optimization through refined real-time data which facilitates tracking the entire supply chain that helps you with transferring stock between low-demand and high-demand warehouses, figure out the best possible storage methods, and efficient layouts.