Lesson 1 of 4

Warehouse flow and layout

A warehouse can be a large building with racking, a storeroom behind a shop, or a container in a yard. The ideas in this course work for all of them. A good warehouse is one where goods follow a clear path, people know where things are, and nobody has to stop and ask.

Goods should travel one way

Think of a warehouse as a river. Goods come in at one end, rest in the middle, and leave at the other end. The best layouts follow this path: receiving, storage, dispatch.

When the path is clear, deliveries do not get in the way of orders going out. When it is not, a supplier truck offloading at the same spot where a bakkie is loading creates a jam, and goods get mixed up.

The path goods follow through a warehouse Three boxes in a row joined by arrows: receiving area, storage, and dispatch area. A fourth small box under the receiving area is the hold spot for damaged or wrong goods. Receiving area goods come in Storage one home per product Dispatch area orders go out Hold spot damaged or wrong Keep the in side and the out side apart so deliveries and orders never block each other.
Goods move in one direction: in, store, out. Damaged or wrong goods wait in their own spot.

Three jobs, three spaces

  • Receiving: room to unload, open boxes, count and check. It should be near the door that deliveries use.
  • Storage: the main area, set up so every product has a home.
  • Dispatch: room to gather an order, check it and wait for the driver.

If you only have one small room, you can still do this. Mark a patch of floor near the door for goods coming in, and another for goods going out. Tape or paint is enough. Two marked patches stop boxes from piling up in the walkway.

A place for goods that are not right

Some goods cannot be sold or sent yet: damaged items, a wrong delivery, a return nobody has checked. Give them one marked spot, away from normal stock, so that no one picks them for a customer by mistake. Tell your supervisor what is in it.

Example

A hardware storeroom has one door. In the morning a supplier truck offloads cement and paint at that door while a contractor's bakkie waits to collect an order. Boxes pile up in the doorway and the picker cannot get through. The fix costs a roll of tape and one rule: deliveries on the left side of the floor, collections on the right.

Walk it, then fix it

To test your layout, take one real order and walk it from the first shelf to the door. Look for places where you double back, step over boxes or squeeze past a pallet. Each one is a point to fix. Walking takes time, and every extra step earns nothing.

Simple layout rules

  • Keep walkways clear. They must be wide enough for the biggest trolley or load you use, with room for a person to pass.
  • Put the products that leave most often closest to dispatch.
  • Keep heavy goods low. Lesson 3 explains why.
  • Label shelves and floor areas. A new person should be able to read the layout on their first day.
Key points
  • Goods should move one way: receiving, storage, dispatch.
  • Even a small room can have a marked in side, out side and hold spot.
  • Walk one real order through the warehouse to find what slows it down.