Warehousing Functions

1. Material Storage Function The primary task of a warehouse is to store any material until it has been delivered to the customer or the end user. As the manufacturing and consumption cycle never match, the manufactured material has to be stored somewhere till the demand for the same is generated and the delivery

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Warehouse Options – A Strategic Decision

For acquiring warehouse space the following three options are available: Private warehouse Public warehouse Contract warehouse The considerations for exercising these options depend on various factors such as product characteristics, demand fluctuations, investments, cost of operation, degree of control, scale economics, etc. The warehouse option is a strategic decision having long-term effects on the

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Warehouse Site Selection

The considerations of warehouse site selection revolve around two major factors, i.e., service and the cost. Product availability can greatly be enhanced by locating the warehouse close to a market place. Smaller and frequent deliveries, which nowadays the customer prefers, can be organized. This will enhance the confidence of the customer in the supplier.

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Warehouse Layout Design

For planning the layout and operation of a warehouse system the following fundamental principles hold, which embody the philosophy of good practice: Making the best use of available space. Using a ‘unitized’ load system suitable for storage. Minimizing the movement of goods by allotting proper storage area. Providing flexibility for changing future needs. Providing

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Warehouse Decision Model

The warehouse decision model helps in identifying the strategic, tactical and operational needs of a warehouse system to fit into the overall objectives of a supply chain (see Figure 4.6). Product The nature of a product will primarily decide on the type of warehouse required for the stor­age of goods. For example, perishable agro

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Warehouse Costing

The elements of warehousing cost normally accounted for are transportation, storage and admin­istration. The inventory carrying cost is not included in warehousing cost. The warehousing cost includes fixed and variable cost elements. The fixed cost covers, rental, capital cost, salary wages of the employees, and utilities while the variable cost covers repair and maintenance,

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Warehousing Strategies

Warehousing network plays a major role in the success of the physical distribution of products. However, with the proliferation of a number of warehouses, the cost of logistics operation goes up. Hence, it is a tight-rope walk for the logistics manager to meet the expectations for cost and custom­er service. Under these circumstances, to

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Virtual Warehouse

The concept of virtual warehousing surfaced due to emerging networking and communication technologies in the 1980s. This helped very large organizations operating in the global markets to evolve a framework of competitiveness with effective and efficient logistics operation to develop an advantage over their business rivals. It is defined as a single storage system

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Warehouse Charter

Majority of the firms do not give due importance to warehousing operations. A warehouse is treated as a place for storage of goods till they are shipped. The top management treats a ware­house as a variable in make-and-sell equation and expect to align with production demands to meet sales promises. Often warehouse management do

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Performance Parameters

A warehouse is an integral part of a supply chain and its objectives should align with those of the overall supply chain of a firm. In the absence of a goal congruence, the element of risk in sub­optimizing the operations of a warehouse at the expense of performance of the overall supply chain will

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Cold Chain Infrastructure

The term cold storage refers to a refrigerated chamber for storage of perishable commodities such as fruits, vegetables, fish, eggs, meat, dairy products, etc. In these storage structures, the tempera­ture is controlled so that the quality of the stored perishable products does not deteriorate. In cold storage the temperature is maintained in the range

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Role of Material Handling in Logistics

In the past several years, material handling has emerged as a new and complex science evolving rapidly. For moving the material in and out of warehouse, various kinds of equipment and systems are used depending on the type of products and volumes to be handled. These equipments are used for the movement of goods

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Material Handling Guidelines

Material handling function has an effect on the efficiency and the speed of the warehousing operations, which ultimately result in either elongated or compressed order completion cycle. Hence, investment in material handling system is strategic in nature and is always based on the long-term requirements, considering the product volumes and varieties. Normally, the fol­lowing

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Material Handling Equipment and Systems

Material handling system is classified on the basis of its degree of sophistication. The most pre­ferred way of material handling is doing manually where the volumes handled are less and the investment in handling equipment do not ensure more benefits. In such cases, the idle time of the equipment will be more and equipments

Unit Load Storage

Storage of material may be done in a variety of ways. However, some materials are more of a con­cern than others. The ultimate goal of any material storage system is to have ease in material place­ment and retrieval, ensuring space efficiency and minimum time in tracking, tracing and pickup. With advances in technology, the

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Storage Principles

The storage system in warehouse has important bearings on the total cost and success of warehous­ing operations. Firms give more importance to the way the inventories are handled rather than how they are stored. Invariably in industry, investment planning is done more for handling equipment rather than the storage system (Figure 6.2). In fact,

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Storage Design – Benefits

Proper planning of the storage system helps in improving the efficiency of the entire logistics sys­tem. This helps in speedy movement of goods across the supply chain, which results in improving system productivity. 1. Space Economics Proper design of storage scheme can result in a substantial saving on the available space, which helps in

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Storage Methods

Storage methods depend on the physical characteristics (size, weight, shape) of the product and also on the volumes to be stored or handled. The other variants are brittleness and crushability in case of fragile products. The type of material handling system (manual or automatic) calls for installation of a tailor-made system. However, following are

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Inventory – Asset or Liability?

Inventory generally constitutes the second largest item after fixed asset in the financial balance sheet of a manufacturing company. From a financial perspective, inventory is one of the major cur­rent assets that can contribute to maximizing the value of the firm and no significant disadvantages are seen in carrying more inventory. But investments in

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Inventory Functions

Inventory management is a strategic area in logistics operation and has an impact on efficiency and effectiveness of the overall supply chain system. As the cycles of production and consumption never match, goods have to be kept in stock to get over the uncertainties in demand and supply. However, higher inventory levels will affect

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