Managing a warehouse requires a whole raft of skills, including great organisation, the ability to communicate well with team members and an excellent knowledge of health and safety regulations. We’ve put together the following tips to help you make your warehouse a more productive area, as well as a more appealing place to spend your working day.
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Allow for seasonal trends
Hoarding stock during slack periods is a waste of time and space, so try to keep stock at appropriate levels for the time of year. Forecasting demand based on historical trends is an important element of stock control.
Arrange intuitive bin locations
Organising the warehouse so that product search is cut to the minimum amount of time increases productivity. Faster moving stock needs to be placed more prominently than other items so that they can be easily located and distributed.
Staff training and safety awareness
Warehouses hold plenty of scope for potential accidents, so staff training is of particular importance. The British Safety Council reports that approximately 1,300 workers suffer fork-lift truck related injuries every year, which amounts to around five accidents every single day, many of them involving life-altering injuries – and all of them completely avoidable. So put safety protocols in place, and ensure that they are strictly adhered to. It’s also important to make sure that every single member of your warehouse team knows how to carry out their job safely and effectively, so encourage ongoing training protocols.
Careful planning of stock layout
An intuitive layout and easily navigable layout is of primary importance when running a warehouse, so make sure that your stock is laid out appropriately. Shelving needs to be robust and fit for purpose, so if your shelving is past its best, now would be a good time to source alternative options. When considering options for shelving Ireland is a good starting point, with companies such as https://www.rackzone.ie/shelving/industrial-residential-shelving offering an excellent range of options, suitable for most purposes.
Automation
Introducing tech into the warehouse helps to keep track of stock levels and movements with pinpoint accuracy, which is particularly important where high volumes of stock are constantly on the move. Where a company has multiple warehouse locations, the use of tech is even more important, helping to keep track of goods at every stage of their journey.
