Warehousing facilities play a crucial role in the supply chain process because they are responsible for efficiently reducing the transportation costs, managing the products to reach the customers safely and other value-added services like labelling, branding, packaging, kitting, assembling and reverse logistics.
Furthermore, warehousing is nothing but managing the storage, and this is where warehouse shelving solutions come in handy. Technology has always helped in improving the effectiveness of supply chain management. Several tactics are incorporated for cost-effectiveness to locate product delivery, and availability is associated with facilities, transportation, labour, equipment and critical cost variables.
Requirements of a warehouse.
There are some requirements of the warehouse to be fulfilled to achieve desired operations and networks.
Location
The locality of the warehouse plays a primary role that is determined by the location of supply offices, the volume of products from supply offices, transport costs, product characteristics, prime customers and markets and level of service needed. Other than these factors, other significant things to be considered are area and buildings, infrastructure, communication infrastructure, government policies, cost of labour and transportation infrastructure.
Information and technology requirements
To run a warehouse efficiently, information based on short and long term predictions is the foremost thing to be considered. Short term predictions include labour and space requirements, whereas long term predictions include warehouse size, labour needs and equipment. In terms of technology, warehouse management systems are used to properly function storage houses for strategising and completing receiving, storing, and shipping operations. Technology has made it easier for warehouse and supply chain companies in rapid and efficient performance.
Performance measuring
The primary goals of using a warehouse are to receive products, store them safely without causing damage, delivering on time and at a competitive cost. For these goals to get fulfilled, a proper measurement of performance is required. Generally, performance is measured based on productivity management, space management, accuracy, cost, service, inventory and damage.
Design and operations
The design and operations of a warehouse are determined by the factors such as the product, its condition when received, service capabilities, nature of the consumer orders and mode of transportation. The characteristics of a product are essential for effective operations. The characteristics generally include packaging, dimensions, shelf life, temperature, weight and nature of the product (control needs and hazardous material needs ). Furthermore, the design is a vital factor to determine space and storage efficiency. The automation of storage and warehouse shelving solutions can only be decided based on the criteria mentioned above.
Modern trends in warehouse
Modern warehouses need the implementation of the latest trends for better operation and efficiency. Some of the latest trends to get an idea about the future warehouses.
Automation
Since managing a warehouse is not an easy task, it needs special techniques for proper functioning. Warehouses need more talented managers to take care of due to the heavy operations round the clock. So it is better to incorporate more automation in warehouse management. For handling the items in the storage, technologies like pouch sorters, shuttle systems, automated storage, put walls, and automatic packaging machines.
Robotics
To reduce labour costs and increase productivity, mobile robots pick products, transport them inside warehouses, and store them safely. Stationary robots can be used for packaging, sorting and adding information tags for the products.
Software and sensors
The software can be used for better optimisation of the operations in a warehouse. Sensors are used to find the faults in conveying, processing and storing the products. The information collected is sent to the computers for analysing by the software, for rectification.