Tips for Laying Out a New Warehouse （小贴士制定一个新的仓库）.pdfVIP

Tips for Laying Out a New Warehouse By Jason Bader Managing Partner – The Distribution Team If you are like many of my distribution clients, you would love to change the layout of your warehouse to make it more efficient. Unfortunately, creating wholesale change in the facility would be too expensive and disruptive to your current business. You tweak what you can and ponder what could be. What if you had the opportunity to start fresh? What would you do differently? Recently a client sent me a note asking for some advice. He is moving into a new facility and would like to give the warehouse folks the best opportunity for success. Rather than just send him a note with a few suggestions, I thought it would be appropriate to share it with all my readers. I am sure that you can come up with more ideas, but these should give everyone plenty to consider. Supersize the Receiving Area When my partner Scott and I used to help clients design a new warehouse, the first thing we would do is draw up an obnoxious amount of space for the receiving function. We knew full well that the client was going to cut it down and throw up more product racks, but we wanted to stress the importance of the space. Receiving is the most critical function in the warehouse. One mistake here generally translates to ten additional errors before you get it corrected. Let me take a moment to translate. An error in distribution means a reduction to your net profit. Think about all the activities that a receiving team must do. They break down pallets. They count the items and reconcile with the manufacturer’s packing list. Sometimes they add bar- coded labels. Occasionally, the manufacturer makes a shipping error and the team needs to stage the product. Items come in to fulfill customer back orders. We need a place to accommodate this type of cross docking activity. When we force the team to work in cramped quarters, mistakes will occur. Keep Shippin