Question

Identify a warehouse that you encounter in daily life, and describe the products, facilities and the material handling machines being served/used.

•       Suppose the manager wants you to help improve the warehouse operation efficiency, what do you suggest?
•       If you finally decided to reallocate the warehouse layout, what information do you need the manager to gather?

Answer 1

Let me consider a warehouse that I usually encounter in my daily life, here, various heavy machinery products are served and the facilities include various work sites, each work site include machineries or equipments, work line or line bay, with marking of process area like cutting area, drilling area, bending area, etc, staff office room and rest room. Warehouse facilities are available to store and transfer the materials, components and finished products.

As, I have been given task to improve operational efficiency of the warehouse, here, I can suggest several tasks that can improve such efficiency, these are as stated below:

• The first thing, I should focus on preparing warehouse layout, as layout has crucial role for its efficient functioning. The Layout should consider easy entry and removal of Material, components and finished goods. I should keep sufficient Bay area or Movement area, where, vehicle or Trolley can move and we can transfer or place the object within limited time.
• I should build rack of items, that will keep more items within limited space and I can manage the space easily. There should be material tracking system and identification number of each rack, so, we can search any material at any point of time and we can understand on hand quantity and quantity needs to come or remove.
• I will guide to implement technology, these technologies will be used for several purposes like shifting materials, store materials, track Materials and record any data for future use.
• Another very important thing, here, staffs should be well trained to handle inventory in such warehouse; well trained staff can improve safety level, minimize material handling time and finally improve operational efficiency of warehouse.

I want to relocate the warehouse layout, following are the information I am required to gather, and these are as stated below:

• For relocation purpose, I need to understand where I will be relocating such warehouse, how the capacity of new facilities is, how position of such warehouse is, I must understand the objective behind the relocation.
• Relocating the warehouse layout, here, I will be reviewing whether new area has sufficient staff, technology. As there should be various facilities to monitor warehouse facilities.
• We should also look at various external factors like geographical location, political situation, transportation connectivity, economic situation and gather relevant information before doing any relocation. Risk assessment is necessary in such context.