3 slide powerpoint (Supply chain) (Due in 5 hours)
budsimpson
ImproveWarehouseCapacity1.docxWhy It Is Important to Improve Warehouse Capacity
Saving Money: When you can store more items in your warehouse, it means you can order more products from your vendors in a single transaction. This gives you the chance to save money on bulk orders because suppliers will generally discount their price per unit when you buy products in certain quantities. If you normally order 100 widgets from a supplier at $1.00 per unit and your vendor offers a 25 percent discount on orders of 1,000 units or more, it’s obvious that you can save money on the products you need by purchasing more per order. Using the scenario described above, you can increase your warehouse storage capacity to accommodate 1,000 widgets and spend $750 on one order instead of spending $1,000 on ten separate orders for 100 widgets.
Improving Organization: If your current warehouse layout is forcing you to stock similar items in the same bin or you simply don’t have enough room for all of the items you’re carrying, it can be difficult to keep your warehouse organized. By optimizing your storage space to increase your overall capacity, you can improve the organization of your products. An organized warehouse can make it easier for your employees to find and pick products, which can reduce the amount of time it takes them to complete orders. An organized warehouse can also instill greater confidence in your vendors when they tour your facility, increasing the chances that they’ll continue to trust you to distribute their goods efficiently.
Redesigning Floor Plan: Although managers often try to increase their warehouse storage capacity so they can accommodate a larger number of products or a bigger quantity of the items they already sell, some managers may increase their storage capacity in order to rework their floor plan. By increasing your storage capacity to free up some floor space, you can increase the width of your aisles, for instance. Aisle width influences the type of equipment your employees can use, as well as the number of people who can work in a single aisle at the same time.
How to Determine Warehouse Capacity
Even if you’ve run the same warehouse for years, you may not be familiar with its current warehouse storage capacity. While your physical walls may be in the same place as they originally were and your floor and ceiling may have the same measurements, your facility’s storage capacity may change over time as your inventory changes, new equipment is introduced, and your floorplan is redesigned.
Staying current with your warehouse’s storage capacity is important because it effects how you run your daily operations. Knowing your facility’s storage capacity is also helpful in instances when you’re trying to convince upper management that the space in your warehouse is no longer sufficient. If you know you don’t use all of your building’s storage space even during your peak sales periods, knowing your storage capacity can also reveal an opportunity for you to make additional money by leasing out a portion of your warehouse.
Even though measuring your warehouse storage capacity involves some basic math, it’s still not the easiest or most precise equation. To calculate your storage capacity, you’re going to figure the ratio of the cubic storage capacity of storage space divided by the total cubic volume of the part of your building that’s used for storage. To determine the volume of your storage area, you’ll measure the dimensions of its length, width, and maximum stack height, making allowances for things such as lights or sprinklers, which may reduce your maximum stack height.
Next, you’ll calculate a storage capacity for every storage area (such as every row or bin) in your warehouse and add them together. The number you end up with is your “theoretical” storage capacity. Your theoretical storage capacity is not your actual storage capacity because it doesn’t account for things such as the room necessary to move products or pallets in and out of their storage positions.
As an example, let’s say you run a 20,770 square foot distribution center that has pallet racks and two rows or carton flow racks. To determine your building’s entire warehouse storage area, you would multiply 20,770 by the height of the top of the load on the highest beam, which in this case is 20.6 feet. The result shows that your distribution center’s total storage capacity is more than 427,000 cubic feet.
Now, let’s say that you have a theoretical storage cube of just under 118,700 cubic feet. Dividing your warehouse’s total building cube into your storage cube would reveal that your layout and storage aides occupy about 27.8 percent of your building. This number is significant because it can help you identify areas in which you can better optimize your storage space by changing the width of your aisles, adjusting the orientation of your pathways or the size of your racks and shelving, or making some other changes.
Another important measure for you to consider is how well you use your available storage capacity to store your goods. This measure is critical because it can impact the equipment you decide to use to handle product, the amount of labor you need, your support systems, and your policies and procedures. Again, this measure is dynamic, meaning it will change in accordance with various factors, including the nature and size of your inventory and changing consumer tastes.
You can determine your utilization of storage capacity by calculating it as a percentage of your theoretical storage space. If you have a warehouse inventory management system, you can calculate your space use by running a report to identify the cubic volume of your inventory. You’ll then divide your inventory cube by your total theoretical storage cube.
For instance, let’ say you have a theoretical storage capacity of 100,000 square feet. Let’s also assume that your inventory cube is 37,000 cubic feet. To see how well you’re using your available storage capacity, simply divide 37,000 by 100,000.
How to Improve Warehouse Capacity
Now that you know how to measure your warehouse capacity and you’re familiar with the benefits that increasing your warehouse storage capacity can provide, you may be eager to learn ways to increase your warehouse’s capacity. Luckily, there are many warehouse storage organization ideas that you can implement in your facility.
Here are some ideas about how you can increase warehouse storage capacity at your location.
Use a Warehouse Inventory Management System
One of the most vital tools you have at your disposal to increase your storage capacity is a warehouse management system, or WMS. A WMS provides information about your inventory and storage space in real time. It can help you free up storage space by identifying obsolete inventory that can be donated or discarded. You can also use your WMS to organize the products in your inventory because your system will assign floor and shelving locations for your products based on their sales volumes and unit load dimensions.
You can use a modern WMS to manage your inventory at every point along the supply chain. Many warehouse management systems enable you to integrate your system with the platforms your suppliers use. This enables your vendors to see the amount of their goods that you currently have in stock. When your stock falls below a certain designated level, your suppliers can ship additional products to you automatically. A WMS can also generate purchase orders automatically when your inventory gets too low. By having these capabilities, a WMS can prevent you from having too much of certain products on hand, freeing up storage space you can use for other items or purposes.
Use the Right Shelves at the Correct Height
The type of shelves you can use to increase your facility’s storage capacity partially depends on the type of racking system you use, unless you’re using pallet floor storage and block stacking. No matter what kind or racking system you ultimately choose, be sure to position your shelves at a height that will prevent your employees from having to strain to reach the items they need to fulfill orders.
By changing your racking system, you have the opportunity to use more vertical space to increase your total storage capacity. You can also increase the rate at which your employees are able to store and remove items from shelves. Some of the racking systems that are available include:
· Single Deep Selective Racking Systems
· Double Deep Selective Racking Systems
· Push-Back Racking Systems
· Pallet Flow Through Racking Systems
· Drive-In Racking Systems
· Pallet Runner Shuttle Systems
· Flow Rail Systems
Do Some Housekeeping
While very few people enjoy housekeeping during a shift, it’s critical that you keep your warehouse clean and organized at all times. Doing so will not only protect the safety and well-being of your employees, it also has the potential to increase your warehouse’s storage capacity.
Just as pallets and boxes can consume valuable floor space, debris and clutter can also reduce the amount of room you have to store things. By making cleaning an ongoing task for all of your employees, you can prevent trash from accruing and optimize your storage space. One way you can inspire your staff to clean is by adopting the 5S method to ensure their workstations are well maintained and clutter is kept out of your aisles. The 5S method includes the following steps: sort, set in order, shine, standardize and sustain.
Change Your Shipping Supplies
You may be able to increase your warehouse storage capacity simply by changing the materials you use to ship your goods. A paper-based void fill system employs a single A 4-sized pack of paper to provide the same protection that three bags of polystyrene chips provide. By switching to the paper-void fill system, you wouldn’t have to use as much of your storage space for your shipping materials.
If you use an automated void reduction system, you may be able to reduce the amount of space reserved for shipping materials even further. With this kind of system, you could reduce the number of box sizes needed to ship your goods and you wouldn’t need to keep void fill in your warehouse.
