We have the answers. Here’s how to make your warehouse more efficient.

Trimming the fat and keeping effectiveness high is vital to the success of any business, and warehouses are no exception. From storage to training to automation, here’s how to make your warehouse more efficient. 

Maximize Storage

At some point, your storage needs may require the expansion of your building—but don’t start there. Before turning to renovation, ensure that you’ve maximized the space you do have. Reducing the distance between shelving can allow additional units to be incorporated. To do this, you might consider one-way aisles instead of two-way to alleviate traffic jams.

Also, make sure you’re using vertical space to the best of your ability; much of the time, there is room above all your shelving units that goes completely unused.

Reduce Wasted Time

Incentivizing your workforce can be a good way to increase productivity, but only if the lack of labor output is attributed to laziness. Often the reduced output is due to awkwardness in building layout or other big-picture issues. 

Ensure that items are placed strategically with rarely shipped items stored further away from your team. Keep workstations well-organized, too. This may end up only saving employees seconds, but those seconds will add up. If you aren’t sure what can be optimized, seek out employee feedback, as employees interact with the warehouse more closely than anyone.

Keep Training Staff

Training isn’t as simple as initial safety information—it’s something you should continually address as new technology and innovation are brought into the warehouse. Just as employees need to be brought up to speed on new advancements, their managers may require additional training to understand how these new advancements affect their staff.

Embrace Automation

Automation comes with initial costs but has significant long-term value. Thankfully, there are automated options on almost every level. If your warehouse requires stretch wrapping, investing in a horizontal stretch wrapper can save you a lot of time. A more substantial investment (but one that could see more substantial value) are laser-guided vehicles, which can transport goods entirely independently.

Now that you know how to make your warehouse more efficient, you can cut down on waste and watch productivity soar