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 safe, secure and clean working conditions.

Location of the stock in a warehouse directly affects the total material handling expenses of all goods moving through the warehouse. A balance has to be maintained between the material han­dling cost and utilization of warehouse space. Proper storage and handling equipment should be chosen to improve the utilization of cubic capacity. Effective space utilization includes making good use of building volume and not merely the floor area. The following steps need to be followed while designing the layout of a warehouse for a given space:

• Defining a location for receiving and shipping function.
• Allocating separate area for slow, medium and fast moving items.
• Defining a location of fixed obstacles such as building columns, staircases, elevator shafts, toilets, etc.
• Defining a minimum path for the movement of equipment and personnel for faster storage and retrieval.
• Locating stationary material handling equipment (crane, conveyor) at the assigned places.
• Locating storage equipment at the assigned places.
• Repeating the process for generating an alternative layout.

The evaluation of alternative layouts of a warehouse is done based on the following guidelines normally followed in an industry:

1. Item Turnover

Amongst the number of items a warehouse stores a few may have very high turnover. Space alloca­tion for such items should be such that storage and retrieval may be quick and the cross-movement of the material handling equipment may be minimum. The throughput rate of the item decides the storage method so the handling equipment can be used more efficiently and effectively resulting in minimum equipment operating cost-to-throughput ratio.

2. Space Utilization

The ratio of the utilized pace and the open space depends on the degree of mechanization and automation of the warehouse facility. For the semi-mechanized warehouse this ratio varies from 70:30 to 75:25. A large open space is required for manoeuvring the material handling equipment. However, for complete automatic warehouse operation this ratio may reduce to 85:15 depending on the type of products to be stored.

3. Product Configurations

Heavy and large items should be stored at a place where they can be easily accessed and moved for shipping. The honeycombing movement of these items within the warehouse area should be minimum. The large and heavy items, which are not affected by elements of nature, may be kept in an open yard. The oddly shaped and crushable items subject to stacking limitation need special attention for storage methods and space allocations.

4. Product Characteristics

The shelf-life of a product has an influence on the layout of a warehouse. The layout of a warehouse should help in good stock rotation so that the shelf-life problem is automatically taken care of.

5. Good Housekeeping

A clean and safe working condition indirectly helps in increasing labour productivity of a ware­house. Hence, warehouse layout planning should begin with keeping in mind housekeeping as an important objective.

6. Safety and Security

A layout should ensure safety of the people, product and equipment during product storage and movement. Sharp blind bends in the movement paths of equipment in a warehouse should be avoided. The layout should ensure ease in proper supervision to detect pilferage or stealing of the stored material.

Source: Sople V.V (2013), Logistics Management, Pearson Education India; Third edition.