Designing activities for any warehouse can be quite fascinating however only few people will really understand the logistics of how these warehouses really function and as a result, many of these facilities often underperform.
Therefore, in this small write up we shall outline few important principles, which will help you to be a seasoned Stendel Reich distribution center architects.
- Determine the basic objective of warehouse facility
Before you design any warehouse, first you must be very clear about the objectives of the warehouse. All the efficiency, running cost, effective utilization and working environment of the ware house will be based on this objective.
Also, with time often the objective changes and necessary flexibility must also be incorporated at this stage.
- Define volumes and other functional requirements
Next important things will be to decide the amount of incoming goods, throughput velocities, inter-facility transfers, customer order, returns and dispatches all the requirements have to be decided.
Believe me, it is not so easy to do. That is because very few warehouses have got such data available with them.
- Match storage modes and other associated technologies with volumes
After you have reasonably figured out about various functional requirements then the next thing to consider is selection of equipment to carry out the operation.
Selection of equipment must be done keeping in view of latest technology available in this field. Nowadays many automations have also been introduced in this field.
- Flow
There can be different kind of flow requirement based on the type of items to be handled by the warehouse. It is therefore necessary to consider that flow must be smooth, consistent and safe.
- Close to no material handling
Modern day warehouses are so designed that there is no scope for any kind of manual handling during the work in process. There can be plenty of design constraints to completely handle such situation.
However, some way out has to be found out.
- Evaluate your options
Few of the options considered for the design of warehouse may be properly evaluated before really putting them in operation. Both quantitative as well as qualitative analysis has to be done to reach the final conclusion.
- Consult with various related people
To be frank, no single party will have all the necessary background and knowledge in order to implement this kind of project.
Therefore, it will be necessary to have a detailed discussion with all related people who are involved in the operation and management of such warehouse.