Five perils of poor warehouse design

As the e-commerce boom continues, driven by the consumers desire for shopping online, fulfilment centre design is becoming ever more important. Space maximisation coupled with efficient process and layout design are the major considerations for any business operating in this sector.

Listed below are five perils of poor warehouse layout, based on my experience of setting up and operating multiple distribution centres both in the UK and Europe.

Pick face layout and capacity

Most distribution centres servicing the e-commerce market will pick orders from a specially designed pick face. Calculating the correct size of pick slot for each product is essential for maintaining the efficiency of that part of the warehouse. Also, since sales demand for any particular product will fluctuate, reviewing the location and size of each individual pick slot is essential. Failure to do this can result in part picked orders, in turn creating additional shipment cost and additional picking time.

Unloading/loading space

Warehouse layout design often ignores the need for sufficient space to receive and despatch products. Allocating insufficient space for these activities can cause process bottlenecks and inefficiencies in loading and unloading. Most importantly health and safety protocols can be breached due to conflicts between activity and the need to maintain pedestrian and MHE segregation. Typically, one third of the overall warehouse space should be allocated to these activities.

MHE and pedestrian segregation

All warehouses contain MHE (fork trucks) and pedestrians. Sometimes, unfortunately, little thought is given to robust systems to keep both parties separate. Simply painting the floor to indicate pedestrian only areas is inadequate and will not prevent accidents occurring. In order to protect pedestrians from MHE physical barriers need to be erected with appropriate signage. Whilst this will throw up some challenges in terms of work flow, it is the safest option.

Returns

All e-commerce businesses are involved in some form of reverse logistics process, whereby customer returns are received back in the distribution centre. Again sometimes, insufficient thought is given to the design of the layout for this process. In some industries, up to 50% of orders despatched can be received back as returns, yet the physical returns area is often squeezed into a dark corner with a consequent lack of efficiency and poor customer service.

Creating a visible and well laid out area in which to receive and process returns is vital. This both saves time when processing the return and supports the efficient disposition of the return.

Racking layout

Maximising the warehouse cube in terms of storage is critical when designing the layout. Two common mistakes are over generous aisle widths and failure to utilise the height of the warehouse. The current generation of MHE not only supports aisle widths down to 1.6 metres with racking height up to 16 metres. Whilst clearly there is a trade off between the MHE cost and racking layout, maximising the pallet capacity is a key requirement for any new warehouse design.

Interested in feedback on any of these points!