Organising your warehouse

[JJWinst]

Hi everyone,

We are shortly moving into larger premises with a small warehouse space for our ecommerce business. Previously stock has been arranged in boxes which is quite messy, and sometimes hard to get to (if it's at the bottom of a pile)

I'd like some advice on laying out my warehouse, and ask whether anyone has any advice from going through this process?

Lastly, we sell on 3 platforms. Would you keep stock together, or separate them dependant on their sales avenue?

 

[Karimbo]

put more shelves so you don't have to stack boxes on top of each other.

organise your storage so you have your most frequently picked items 1.5m off the floor so it takes less time to pick (and reduce risk of accidents).

 

[Chris34]

I've just downsized from a 2,000 Sq Ft Unit to a 150 Sq Ft unit. I've yet to get it how I want but the design I have come up with is amazing.

The racking is all diy, made out of wood and metal. Each product has its own shelf and they are stacked all the way to the ceiling which is 3 metres high. The shelving is adjustable both in height and in width.

The width has to be the same for the entire column from the floor to ceiling, but the next column can be a different width. The column widths can be adjusted at any time but it has to be the whole column.

The row heights can be different for each shelf and the adjustment for each shelf will take less than 10 seconds per shelf. The adjustment for each shelf is in 1cm increments, so it will look almost like the boxes are stacked on top of each other but they are not, this means that the wasted space is kept to an absolute minimum.

I've worked out that on 1 column that is 3 metres high I can store on average 30 boxes, this means the wastage for the 1cm gaps equate to the equivalent of 3 boxes per column. Bearing in mind though that stacked on top of each other I could only fit 33 boxes from floor to ceiling anyway and obviously that would be impractical to work like that.

The design means that I can take a box out of anywhere in the column and the column will still look all neat and tidy, it will just have an empty space where the box was. It also maximises the amount of boxes I can store and still have the unit operational.

It's taken me several weeks to think it through and come up with the perfect design that is the most efficient to use and build it in the quickest and cheapest way. Once it's finished I estimate I should be able to pick and pack at a rate of 40 to 60 parcels per hour. In the 2,000 Sq Ft unit it was around 25 to 30 per hour.

Everybody recommends these racking systems, they are quick to put up but the amount of space you waste is huge, It is also a messy way to operate. My system is designed to solve those two problems.


Chris.

 

[Jayser100]

I wouldn't separate your stock out according to marketplaces unless all the items you sell are unique to one sales channel - I can't really see the point in that. Draw a floor plan of your racking; planning it out carefully before you start buying racks is very important. Measure the floor area, look at the different types and sizes of racking available (Rapid Racking have a large selection) and see how much you can squeeze in without restricting access to the shelves. When we moved into our new premises in October, I drew a floor plan of the warehouse on graph paper and then drew the racks on, to scale.

If you sell very small items and you don't want to keep them in their original packing cartons, why not buy some plastic bins and decant the products into them, then label the bins (Lin bins have a place on the front to add a label). then you can just line them up on the shelves in a logical order, grouping types of product together.

 

[Chris34]

I wouldn't separate your stock out according to marketplaces unless all the items you sell are unique to one sales channel - I can't really see the point in that. Draw a floor plan of your racking; planning it out carefully before you start buying racks is very important. Measure the floor area, look at the different types and sizes of racking available (Rapid Racking have a large selection) and see how much you can squeeze in without restricting access to the shelves. When we moved into our new premises in October, I drew a floor plan of the warehouse on graph paper and then drew the racks on, to scale.

Yeah I've done that before as well. What I did was draw out the dimensions of the warehouse and then made little rectangular strips of paper for each rack. You can then move the racks about on the graph paper in different layouts and work out which layout gives you the most racking space. You also have to work out things like the amount of space required to take a box off the shelf, too much and your wasting space, too little and your banging elbows.

For my latest unit I did the same but I drew it out to scale using Microsoft Excel. It's a neater way of doing it with everything being stored on the pc.

It's surprising how well it works. You can physically look at the space available in an empty space and it won't seem possible to do what your plans say, but once you have it finished it all works perfectly to plan.

Just be sure with all your measurements and triple check them : )

Chris.

 

[Amy@ Filplastic- Racking]

Hi, this might be a bit late, but we specialise in this sort of thing.
Our wire storage baskets are designed to fit within pallet racking bays, so that orders can be picked from the baskets, while surplus stock is stored on the pallets above. I've just recently added an order picking section to our website which has a bit of advice on there too. http://www.filplastic.co.uk/collections/order-picking

We've just recently done Bonmarche's warehouse, case study here http://www.filplastic.co.uk/blogs/case-studies/16019684-bonmarche-warehouse-baskets

We also stock pallet racking etc so can offer great prices on that too.