Logical storage solutions blog

Warehouse Design and Storage Tips and Tricks

Improving your warehouse layout can boost productivity and efficiency but designing or changing a warehouse layout can be quite complex.

Redesigning your warehouse can ensure you optimise the space available and increase storage capacity and enhance safety.

To ensure you get the best out of your warehouse design and storage, we have compiled various warehouse design and storage tips and tricks to help you get started.

Define Objectives

Before beginning the planning process, you should determine and clearly define your objectives. These should be aligned with the overall warehousing strategy and aid business objectives, such as reducing costs or providing excellent customer service.

Know Local Building Codes

Do you know what clearance is required from the top of a pallet load to the sprinkler heads? Do you know whether your warehouse is situated within a seismic area which means special design considerations need to be made?

It is important that you familiarize yourself with your local building codes regarding warehouse product storage to ensure your warehouse complies with them.

Understand Goods Circulation

Observe and understand how goods move throughout the warehouse and the logistical operations involved in the dispatch, receipt, and order preparation processes.

Know how often the product is rotated, and how often loads are moved.

Determine Spatial Relationships

Once you have a clearly defined project, the next phase in the process is to develop an overall plan.

However, before starting to plan the layout of the warehouse, you should determine spatial relationships between areas of the warehouse. The flow of the warehouse may be compromised if you do not consider these.

Start With A Schematic

It is best to get everything down on paper before installation commences. If you have the blueprint for the warehouse, this will help to speed up this step and ensure accurate planning.

Test The Layout Design

Before you start installing new racks and shelves, you should also test the layout design by doing a walkthrough of the warehouse so that you can visualize the new layout and make sure everything is ready for installation and will flow well.

Mark out major work areas using masking tape and make sure you can carry things, roll pallet jacks, and that employees will be able to carry out work activities through the gaps between the outlines.

Ensure Adequate Lighting

Inadequate lighting can cause safety issues and result in decreased worker productivity and efficiency due to poor visibility so proper lighting plans must be in place.

Accommodate Future Growth

When planning your warehouse, you should consider future projected growth, and try to accommodate for potential growth to reduce the need to redesign your layout again in the future.

Regularly Review The Layout

Put an ongoing process in place to regularly review the layout of your warehouse to help you to identify inefficiencies or areas for improvement.

Reviewing the configuration of storage areas and the efficiency of processes in a warehouse is considered best practice and is critical to ensuring that space is utilised effectively.

Talk To Experts

It can be tempting to just dive straight into planning your warehouse layout without consulting a professional. However, for best results and to avoid any hiccups, it is important that you seek input from experts, such as contractors or warehouse managers.

Contact our expert team on 0845 689 1300, or email [email protected], to find out how we can help you to create a warehouse that is productive, efficient, and maximises space.

Logical Storage Solutions is an innovative provider of storage equipment and interior workspaces for both industrial and commercial environments including office partitions and mezzanine flooring.

Offering a consultative approach and nationwide service for all single and multi-site operations, we are your one-stop provider of all storage, workspace, and maintenance solutions.