Operion Group
    NL

    Warehouse

    Warehouse design: zones and walking routes

    A good layout saves walking every day. Here you read how we design a warehouse from the process: first the flow of goods, and only then the place of racks and items.

    Starting point

    Process first, then the rack

    When people think about setting up a warehouse, they often think of racks, pallets and crates straight away. We start somewhere else: with the path a product takes. Where does it arrive, where does it wait, where is it collected and how does it leave the building? The layout follows from that path.

    We do not recommend or supply storage products such as racks or pallets. What we do is determine the layout, the zones and the routes, and align the settings of your WMS with them. The whole of those choices is called the warehouse layout.

    Layout

    Zones: each part has its own place

    A warehouse runs more calmly when each part of the flow has its own zone. Usually these are the six:

    • Receiving

      Where goods arrive and are checked. Large enough, so that what has been delivered does not stand in the walking route of other zones.

    • Storage

      The place for stock that is not needed straight away, often higher or deeper in the warehouse.

    • Collection zone

      The place for items that are ordered often. Here the distance is shortest and the picking height most comfortable.

    • Packing

      Where the order is checked and packed, close to the collection zone and to dispatch.

    • Dispatch

      Where parcels and pallets wait for the carrier, kept apart from receiving.

    • Returns

      A place of their own for what comes back, so that it does not run through the rest of the flow.

    Walking routes

    Walking routes: shorter, calmer, one way

    The walking routes in your warehouse determine how much time an employee spends walking. The gain usually lies in three choices. Put the items that are ordered most often closest to where orders are packed. Let routes run one way as much as possible, so that people and vehicles do not cross. And keep aisles free of temporary storage.

    Giving items a fixed place based on how often they are needed is called slotting. The place at eye level, where you bend and reach least, is called the golden zone. BizBloqs explains this at slotting in the warehouse.

    Order on the floor helps as well. A fixed place for everything and everything in its place is the core of 5S, a way of working that we explain further under lean in the warehouse.

    Locations

    A code for every place

    A good layout is only usable when every place has its own code. A code for the aisle, the rack, the bays and the level means an employee reaches the item without searching, and a system knows where something is. How such a structure works, you read at the location system of a warehouse.

    In a redesign we fix the coding before anything is moved. That way the label on the rack says the same as the system.

    Method

    How we design a warehouse

    We work in four steps:

    • Collect data

      We look at which items are ordered often, which are ordered together and how large they are. A ranking by order frequency, the ABC analysis, helps with that.

    • Design

      We draw the zones, the routes and the location codes. Several variants, so that you can lay them side by side.

    • Try

      Where possible, we test the new route first with part of the items or one zone, before the rest follows.

    • Roll out

      We record the codes in your WMS, put up the labels and support your team in the first days of the new way of working.

    Watch out

    Common mistakes in laying out

    We often see these mistakes in warehouses that have grown without a plan:

    • Everything close to the door

      The space at the loading door fills up with everything that has just arrived, so collecting and dispatch get in each other's way.

    • Aisles that are too narrow

      In an aisle where two people, or a forklift and an employee, cannot pass each other, time is lost to waiting every day.

    • No place for returns

      Returns end up in the first free place and cannot be found again later.

    • A layout for yesterday's range

      The items ordered most often now still sit in the place that belonged to an earlier range.

    Safety

    Safe routes come first

    When designing routes, the safety rules always apply. Walking routes, emergency exits and the place of vehicles come before a shorter path. Separate people and vehicles where you can, and keep escape routes clear. A calm, predictable route is also a safe route: anyone who knows where to go does not have to improvise.

    A layout with room to grow prevents you from having to start again soon. So deliberately leave space open in the zones that fill up first.

    Service

    Redesign as a service with a fixed scope

    Redesign is one of our four warehouse services. It covers the layout, the processes and the configuration of your WMS. We agree the scope and the price in advance.

    Are you moving to another building or relocating a large part of your stock? Then read redesigning or moving a warehouse. Do you not yet know where the gain is? Then start with the warehouse scan.

    Read on

    More about warehouse optimisation

    Terms for this topic

    Warehouse layoutFlow5S

    Explained at BizBloqs

    What a system does and how you manage stock, BizBloqs explains itself:

    Part of our warehouse services

    Designing your warehouse is part of our warehouse services. We agree the scope and the price with you in advance.

    View the warehouse services

    Lay out your warehouse again?

    Tell us what is not running well in the layout now. We will tell you what a redesign covers and what the fixed price is.