General Warehouse Organisation Ideas and Tips

Warehouse organisation is often a combination of common sense and whatever suits your own situation, but there are several things that should be applicable across the board. The following tips are great ideas that should have a positive impact in almost every warehouse.

We won’t be advocating ideas that require drones and advanced robotics or solutions that need investment in the millions. These are general ideas that are applicable whether you’re running an operation in a warehouse that would be too big for Amazon, or you’ve just got a handful of dedicated staff handling a few dozen products.

So here are our ten top tips for warehouse management best practices:

It makes sense that the stock you’re selling the most of needs to be easily accessible, so locate it somewhere that’s quick to get to. It’s also worth placing it as near as possible to where it’s going to be packed and/or despatched to keep shifting it around your warehouse to a minimum.

On the other hand, the things you don’t sell much of can go on higher shelves or in the distant corners of the warehouse. But don’t just dump them on a shelf to gather dust. If possible, cover them – whether that’s in a container or by laying plastic sheeting over them – so that you won’t have to spend twice the time you should be getting them into a condition fit to be sent to your customers.

You don’t want to be running out of stock, because there’s very little that annoys customers more than unfulfilled orders. So have a good idea of how much you’re shifting a week/month and make sure you replenish stock in good time. On the other hand, don’t order so much that all it will do is gather dust, degrade or go out of date.

Your staff are your most important asset and making sure that everything you and they do adheres to strict health and safety guidelines is essential. You should never let speed of operation or fulfilment become a reason for taking short cuts or doing things in an unsafe way. Have clear and sensible guidelines and make sure you enforce them.

Part of your health and safety procedures should be clear signage indicating where care needs to be taken, such as when a forklift truck is operating in an aisle. But signage plays a key part in everyday operations as well, even if it’s just clearly marking an aisle or location – that will reduce the number of lost items and the time your team spends looking for stock.

Modern technology does have many benefits and doesn’t have to be expensive, while paper can get lost, crumpled or become indecipherable over time. Reducing – and ideally eliminating – the need for paper saves money in the long term, reduces the potential for human error and makes your warehouse more sustainable. 

Still on the subject of technology, barcode scanning for purposes of checking goods in, picking and despatching is strongly recommended as it is one of the best ways of reducing human error.

No matter how organised you try to be on a day-to-day basis, shelves can get untidy as people do their jobs, and over time that means stock might move out of its location. Whenever you have time, get your ship back into shape so that operations can run as smoothly as possible.

Never become complacent, no matter how well things seem to be going. There’s always room for improvement, whether it’s because individual stock items become more or less popular, new technology becomes available, or one of your team members has a good idea. Meanwhile, make sure you learn from mistakes – understand how a mistake was made and see if you can do anything to stop it happening again – and make sure you involve and listen to all your team. 

If you do have ideas for improvement, make sure they work before introducing them and allow time for them to settle in. If it’s a major change in practice you’re looking to introduce, try to do it at a quiet time of year.

As the UK’s leading suppliers of shop fittings and retail supplies, we at Morplan have many years’ experience of general warehouse organising which means that we are able to offer our customers fast and accurate turnaround of their orders.

To find out more about how we can help you with your retail supplies, contact us today.