5 Basics Warehouse Activities You Should Focus to Improve

Warehouses are a basic part of any production network. So what are the basic warehouse activities you should focus on to improve?

Typically warehouse activities in logistics includes: buffering the material stream along the supply chain to suit changeability brought about by components, for example, item regularity as well as clustering transportation and production; combination of items from different providers for joined conveyance to clients; and value-added processing, for example, product customization, kitting, labelling and pricing (Gu et al., 2007)

Market rivalry requires persistent improvement in the plan and delivery of supply chain networks, which thus requires a higher degree of performance from distribution centres. One way to access the performance of distribution centre is to conduct Warehouse Self-Assessment, using this tool and close the gaps by referring to these warehouse management books. The choosing of management beliefs, for example, Just-In-Time (JIT) or lean production additionally brings new difficulties for distribution centre frameworks, including more tighter stock control, shorter reaction time, and a more product variety.

WELL RESEARCHED WAREHOUSE AUDIT TOOL – TO IMPROVE WAREHOUSE PERFORMANCE

Brief History of Warehouse Activities

 In early days’ man used to store excess food and keeping animals for emergency surplus. As civilization developed, local warehouses were introduced. Normally merchandise is stored in connection with shipping, trading, and manufacturing activities. During the Middle Ages improvement in human knowledge gave rise to warehousing to handle the storage of shipped items. The first known major commercial warehouse was built in Venice, a centre of major trade routes. In the late 1800s in the United States, transportation between port cities and inland cities were effectively provided by the railroad. Freight cars were used as warehouses on wheels and were especially used in the grain harvest season. Shortages in freight cars induced the railroad companies to partition the transportation and warehousing functions. During this time period because of monopoly on both warehousing and freight by railroad companies favoured large corporations, giving them free warehousing services with the use of the railroads. The warehousing facility was provided as an additional service to transportation, and the service so provided was part of the clearance terminal. The word terminal describes the warehouses were located in the centre of the city, normally close to the wholesale market district and railroad depot. (Tompkins, Smith, 1998).

By the end of World War I, hand trucks were used for material handling in warehouses and stacking was done by hand, and stacking heights were designed in 8-to 12-foot range, as their key warehousing operations activities. During World War II, the forklift truck and wooden pallets were introduced. Stacking height of merchandise was increased to 30 feet, nearly a 300 per cent increase due to the mass production of the forklift truck.

Types of Warehouses

 Warehouse activities in logistics may vary depending on types of Warehouse Basically, we will be comparing and discussing on three types of warehouse:

• Distribution warehouses
• Production warehouses
• Contract warehouses

Distribution Warehouses

 A warehouse in which various products from suppliers or third party vendors are accumulated or stored for delivery to different customers or organisations is called a distribution warehouse. It is only acting as a medium of storage or collection between two parties.

Production Warehouses

Whereas a production warehouse can be defined as, storage of raw materials, semi-finished goods and finished goods for a production facility/company. It plays a very important role in boosting the sales and reputation of the production firm by keeping the right products, maintaining the right inventory level and reducing the lead time in delivering the products to customers.

Contract Warehouses

Contract warehouse, you can see the term contract, which means getting into a legal agreement. In this company outsources its warehouse function to the third party to handle the activities falling under that function. A contract warehouse handles multiple orders and deliveries from different customers simultaneously.” (J.P. van den Berg 1999)

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