How Do You Design Your Warehouse?

Warehouses are potentially very dangerous places when you consider what they are for. They store all kinds of your stock and inventory, with lots of above-head storage. The racks are filled with tons of heavy stuff and that can potentially be very daunting for some of your employees. This is especially true if they are the ones who are trying to lift things off the racks. Not to mention, there is lots of hazardous storage, and any spill or rupture can cause harm to your employees. So how should you design your warehouse to prevent any dangerous things from occurring?

Placing Your Heavy Items

In order to safely design your warehouse storage space, you need something like an industrial scale that helps you to weigh everything. There are a range of scales available, everything from 2,500lbs to 10,000lbs and even 20,000lbs. They are made purely out of stainless steel so they are built to last. You’ll know what kinds of items are heavier than others, allowing you to place them safely in your warehouse. This could be that you avoid storing a certain type of metal beam on a rack that cannot handle its weight. You may also place your heavier items closer to the loading bays than the lighter ones. This makes sense because you want as little time of transport as possible when a heavy item is being moved to the loading bay.

Hazardous Materials In Corners

It’s better to keep your hazardous materials away from exits. This is because you don’t want to block exit areas with stuff that could harm or even kill your employees if the material were to become damaged. It’s vital this is done because, during a fire alarm, you want employees to be able to use every exit possible.

Not to mention, hazardous material could spill out onto private land. For example, you are storing acid of some kind. If a barrel were to become damaged and a spill occurs, it’s best to contain that spillage inside your warehouse, rather than have it spill out onto the parking lot, or on the lawn of another business.

Efficiency Is A Skill

When you look at your warehouse storage design, you should have efficiency in mind all the time. This will help you to see what priority items are. These will be the things that you need most often during the day. It will be stock that is most popular and inventory that is most needed to complete a product.

Therefore place your most common items nearer to the loading bays and production lines. This means employees will take less time to find them, less time to transport them and less time to store them when a new batch comes in.

Design your warehouse with safety and efficiency in mind. Place your heaviest items nearest to the loading bays to avoid transport dangers. Place your most common items nearest to the workstations that need them.