Better Ways to Rack Your Indiana Warehouse

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Even with the best forklifts in Indiana, the most skilled employees, and the best customer relations, your warehouse operations might still not be as profitable as they can be. If that’s the case, it might be time to look inward – literally. If your business isn’t reaching the levels of productivity you’re wanting, it could point to inefficiencies in your physical organization, including your racking and shelving.

Here are 3 tips to better racking that can save you time and money and boost efficiency in the long run.

Tip 1: Make Use Of All Your Space

We’ve seen first-hand warehouses with hundreds fewer square footage able to stock and move more inventory than companies with more space. That’s because square footage doesn’t tell the whole story. The companies that make the best use of their space are going up, not out. Here are a few ways you can make better use of your space:

  • Employ a narrow-aisle shelving strategy. Narrow-aisle shelves give you opportunities for more shelving space, without sacrificing ease of picking orders. Narrow-aisle forklifts are also much easier to procure than before.
  • Use over-aisle storage. Even in retail spaces, you can store items up above shelf space for quick access and a little extra storage room. In warehouse settings, you can double up on over-aisle storage with a mezzanine to make access even easier.
  • Prioritize where you rack certain items. Remember that if you’re shelving an item on ground level, it should be something that any of your lifts can carry, like your standing burden carriers, manual pallet racks, and all your forklifts.

Tip 2: Look at Lean Inventory

When you adopt a lean inventory system, you only store and move the items that you need to at that particular time, meaning less focus on safety stock and overstocking items or orders. This lets you use your space to its fullest potential, gives you more flexibility in your racking and shelving, and can reduce time spent picking orders. Furthermore, renting your material handling equipment and forklifts can give your fleet additional flexibility compared to buying outright.

Tip 3: Take advantage of technology

For any sizeable warehouse operation, to monitor progress and success you really need to look at large scale data. To find out gaps in your work, areas of improvement, and to figure out what changes work and which ones don’t; you need to employ a warehouse management system (WMS). An effective WMS such as InfoPlus, proVision WMS, or NetSuite can help you more accurately manage inventory levels, compare costs over time, track customer service operations, and lots more.

As your business grows, so too should how you manage it, and that’s exactly what a warehouse management system can do.

Want More Tips on Running a Smoother Operation?

There’s more than just these three ways to improve your Indiana warehouse racking, shelving and storage. Get in touch with one of our warehouse management experts to find out what you need to improve your warehouse efficiency, from the latest forklifts to better stock management.

Better racking for your warehouse can help improve your bottom line.

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