Running a Productive and Efficient Warehouse – A Quick Guide

There is nothing more stressful than running a business that involves a warehouse operation. It is a massive test of your organizational skills and your ability to run a huge operation safely and can prove to be a real challenge, especially if all of your experience is in other areas of the business.

Running a warehouse is a completely separate discipline, so, with this in mind, here are some useful tips for running a productive and efficient warehouse.

#1 Keep it clean and tidy

It sounds basic, but it is 100% essential. Keeping your business warehouse clean and tidy is a good way to reduce the risk of injury among your workers and to keep your warehouses sanitary. By prompting thorough cleaning and constant check-ups (as well as not allowing staff to eat at their packing benches), you can decrease the risk of pests and bad hygiene, as well as provide a better work environment for your workers.

#2 Make sure you have the right equipment

Making sure that you have the right equipment can be a great way to raise productivity levels and keep them there. By ensuring that you have the right equipment for the job, such as a pallet lifter or an automated forklift, you can ensure that your workers can do their jobs quickly, easily, and safely.

Having the right equipment is only half of the battle. You need to have a maintenance schedule for equipment; otherwise, your workers might get hurt, or the whole piece of machinery could break, and then you would be stuck with downtime and a hefty replacement bill.

#3 Make your workers feel safe

Keeping your workers safe is not just a legal obligation; it can help with the productivity of your business and, of course, boost the morale of everyone who works for you. This doesn’t just mean their physical safety, but also their mental wellbeing by looking at bullying in the workplace and having a zero-tolerance policy toward those in a vulnerable position in your organization.

#4 Keep your warehouse well organized

This is another one that you might file under basic, but definitely, one that you should also file under critical. There is little use doing any of the previous three tasks and spending time and money making them work if you don’t have a structure in place to prevent things from going back to the same sorry state again in six months’ time. This will involve checklists and rotas and all of the other things that are likely to make you unpopular, but you should see the long-term benefits are worth a bit of short-term pain.

To briefly wrap things up

While absolutely everything you need to run a warehouse is not listed above, the four points discussed should set you on the right footing to implement smaller, more specific changes to make your warehouse run more effectively, safe in the knowledge that you have all of the basics covered.