As the industry gets closer to peak, slowly but surely, the need for optimization moves from back of mind to front. Faced with a shrinking warehouse and plummeting productivity, managers admit to not knowing what type or even where to start looking for improvement.

Some focus on recruiting more employees to boost productivity. This only adds to the chaos on the warehouse floor. Others contemplate leasing another warehouse, but that’s not an ideal option at this time of the year. These kinds of responses simply do not tick all the boxes: increasing volume processed while using less labour and maintaining or improving productivity. As they scramble to find solutions, one is reminded of Murphy’s Law of warehousing; ‘if you build it, you will fill it.’

Remember that at capacity over 85%, the rate of actual work done slows down as people start to get in each other’s way. Faced with this decline in productivity, managers try other ways  to fix their ‘capacity problem’:

• Some use grouping and store similar sized SKUs together. While this can work, it works best with certain products and only with some racking types.
• Others minimize aisle width, thus creating more but narrower spaces, and increasing pick faces.
• Facilities with deep pockets can increase pallet storage by leasing another warehouse.
• Others adjust their WMS so they can create pick locations on quarter and half pallets, to facilitate broken-case picking.
• Change the racking type, e.g. change to case flow rack to improve picking rates and optimize space by increasing the number of pick faces.
• Overhaul storage type by replacing steel shelving and wooden boxes with a series of compartmented bins.

These are some of the most common ways used, but most of them end up being temporary solutions.

When faced with space constraints, the knee-jerk reaction is to try to maximise space or minimize wasted space. Sometimes, all that is required is optimization. To understand this, managers need to take a step back and maybe about 20ft up.

From up there, they’ll ‘discover’ an open area sprawled across the previously ‘full’ packing, shipping and receiving sections. To take advantage of this new-found space, Monarch Limited suggests the use of one of our mezzanines.

But first, a word of caution: going vertical is only a viable option if floor space has been completely exhausted.

A raised platform represents an all-encompassing solution, that utilises the available height of the building, to increase floor capacity. Constructed from pallet racking, long span racking or engineered steel, these structures can span a great distance and provide greater load bearing capacities.

With every aspect of the structure fully customizable, they can be built satisfy the most exacting requirements. Need five feet of clearance in one section, and twelve at another end? Done. Need concrete flooring in one section, and anti-static coating at the opposite end? Easy. Stairs, rails, load bearing capacity; can all be customized to the customers needs.

Mezzanines are also excellent hybrid solutions as they can accommodate manufacturing operations, while creating office and storage space. Some more benefits of constructing these raised storage areas include:

• Easy to assemble and dismantle so they can be moved without fuss if there is a need to relocate.
• Multiply existing space; they can create separate zones within the storage area, allowing one area to be used for warehousing & another for despatch. Going even higher, a three-level mezzanine can accommodate conveyors alongside storage for fast-moving and slow-moving SKUs.
• Cheaper than new construction or moving to a new location.
• Custom built to fit the size and shape of the available area.

Whether you’re strapped for space in a distribution facility or a production plant, a raised platform/mezzanine presents the ideal all-in-one solution. Increasing pick faces, changing storage methods, creating narrow aisles; there’s no right or wrong way to carry optimization. But choosing an all inclusive solution can be better in the long run than using piecemeal strategies.

Is your warehouse already looking like a combat zone? Are you interested in a long term solution to your space constraints? Contact Monarch Limited today for more information.