Warehouse efficiency doesn’t fail all at once. Instead, operations slow down quietly. A few extra steps per order. A little more reaching. More waiting. Congestion forms up when you’re not thinking about it. Over time, the operation becomes heavier, less fluid, and more expensive without anyone noticing exactly when it happened.
In many cases, the cause isn’t labor, effort or faulty equipment. It’s geography.
Posted in Order Picking & Fulfillment|
Warehouse buildings have been getting taller: what was once a 16 to 18 foot clear-height facility is now commonly 32 to 40 feet. The logic is straightforward: taller buildings unlock more vertical storage, allowing operators to store more product without expanding the footprint. If you’re in an expensive, landlocked area and need more storage, you need to unlock every vertical inch. High bay pallet rack systems let you use all that air space and can massively increase storage density.
This is a good thing. Until it isn’t.
Posted in Pallet & Warehouse Racks|
If you’ve worked in a warehouse long enough, you know the feeling: pallets everywhere, racks packed to the top beam, and your team playing Tetris just to make the incoming shipment fit. You’re sometimes storing pallets on the floor or holding them in the receiving area until a slot opens. It’s frustrating, destroys organization, slows everything down and ramps up safety risks. What are some things you can do to squeeze more capacity from your warehouse?
Posted in Pallet & Warehouse Racks|
Machine load-unload automation is one of the most profitable and straightforward automation opportunities in both warehouses and factories. It improves productivity in two key ways:
The real payoff is in uptime. When unloading and reloading are automated, a machine rarely waits for an operator. Preparatory work and staging can happen offline, so the next part is always ready. In ideal cases, production rates can increase dramatically without additional equipment investments. Focusing on these key points, where automation can have outsized impact is the key to smarter, better operations. These tend to be low value, but critical processes that should be automated so that labor can be reallocated to more critical functions.
Tags: Automation, Manufacturing
Posted in Automation, Labor & Efficiency|
Whether you’re running a metal fabrication shop or laser cutting center, or stocking raw materials for manufacturing, sheet metal storage can make you faster. It makes the stock easier to reach, protects valuable materials and prevents injuries. However, the wrong solution means injuries, wasted time and damaged materials. In this article, I’m covering a range of solutions, from simple floor stacking to semi-automated carousels, analyzing for fit, safety, access and cost.
Posted in Manufacturing|
Loading and unloading pallet conveyors with forklifts is an everyday, all-day task.
Done right, it’s fast and efficient. Done wrong, product damage, collisions, injuries, and workflow bottlenecks happen. I’ve seen it in dozens of warehouses, even in highly automated operations, and most of them tend to bridge the shipping dock and the end conveyor lines with forklifts (these days, AGVs and AMRs often do this work). Pallets are large, heavy and in motion when they’re transported on conveyors. That combination of size, pressure and movement can result in damage or injuries when not properly controlled.
Tags: forklifts, conveyor safety
Posted in Conveyor Optimization|
Just how many pallets can you store in a 100′ x 100′ area? It can range from not that many–X with selective racks that let you pick or place any pallet at any time–or “Y” using incredibly dense, using pallet flow or drive-in systems that restrict how and when you can access pallets. The balance between storage density and selectivity is always critical, but there are other factors in play: cost, efficiency and safety.
Tags: Space Optimization
Posted in Pallet & Warehouse Racks|
Above: Belt conveyors hang from the ceiling of a busy e-commerce distribution center, feeding shipping operations from a pick module while leaving the space below for traffic and shipping activities.
Conveyor systems transform picking, transport, assembly, and more, but occupy space in fixed positions. Tight layouts, low ceilings, facility structures and equipment compromise and compete for that square footage.  Don’t worry, though—there are creative ways to work circumvent those limitations–and in some cases make them strengths.
Posted in Conveyor Optimization|
Truck drivers often need to enter warehouses when they deliver or pick up shipments. When they do, many warehouses have installed secure driver cages that let the driver into the facility, but not into the building at large. This can seem “driver-unfriendly” because they contain the driver. However, there are good reasons to install them while ensuring drivers have a good experience at your facility.
Tags: warehousing, dock security
Posted in Docks & Shipping|
Most pallet rack systems are installed with a starter-adder design, which shares a common rack upright between consecutive storage bays. The alternative is a double-post rack system, where each bay has two independent uprights. Most of the time, starter-adder is used because it’s more economical and uses space more efficiently.
Given that it’s costlier and uses more space, why–and where–would you use a double-post design?
Posted in Pallet & Warehouse Racks|
