How to Organise Warehouse Shelving

As the warehouse optimisation experts, we know exactly how to make the most of your warehouse or storage facility. Knowing how much available space you have in your warehouse is a necessity as this gives you a baseline from which you can organise your shelving systems, resulting in a lean warehouse operation.

In this guide, we give you the top ways how you can organise your warehouse shelving so that your operation can reach maximum utilisation levels.

Optimise your floor plan – Warehouse layout

A large proportion of warehouse operations don’t utilise their storage space to its highest potential, which can lead to a reduction in revenue – the empty space is an opportunity to store more products. Taking the time to assess your floor plan is a must for any warehouse operator as you may be missing opportunities for valuable space.

Laying out your warehouse shelves and other storage solutions in a manner that can maximise available space but still enable easy access to goods will positively transform your operation.

You should consider the following when optimising your floor plan:

• Identify warehouse needs and current shortcomings
• Design it in a way that prevents interrupted workflow
• Allocate space for equipment and workstations
• Ensure all products and pallets are accessible

Plan for dead inventory – Organise your inventory

Organising your warehouse shelving in a way that makes dead inventory a lesser priority will speed up operation, giving employees more time to focus on your ‘hero’ items. Positioning warehouse shelves that stock the most profitable or most used items closer to the packing and shipping area will give you an efficient process. ABC analysis will help define what products go where in your warehouse in order to give you higher profit margins.

Usage of warehouse labels – Sign application

Another idea on how you can organise your warehouse racks is the usage of warehouse labels. If you’re manually keeping notes of inventory, then it’s time to change. Implementing labels on racking shelves and other storage equipment will help reduce errors and with systems being interlinked, the lag time is significantly reduced so that you can be sure you know what’s in your warehouse at all times.

Another reason why having signs and labels on your shelves is important, is that it makes for prompt navigation and curbs confusion among workers. Clear and easy to see labels improve efficiency and with up to 50% of time spent travelling when picking items, this is a crucial part of your operation.

If you’re not sure how to label shelves, see our guide.

Warehouse Storage Systems

Summary

If you’re struggling with the organisation of warehouse shelves within your storage facility, then this guide should help you achieve exactly that. Creating an optimal floor plan, labelling racks with signs and planning for dead inventory will help organise your shelves in a way that ensures maximum efficiency.

Oakway Storage has a plethora of experience helping businesses with the organisation of their warehouse shelves. To discuss your storage issues, contact us to to speak to one of our warehouse optimisation experts.