Warehouse Layout Guidelines

When you set up your warehouse, consider how you can use your space to most efficiently receive and store items, pick, package, and ship orders, and count your inventory. Give thought to the flow of products and personnel through your warehouse, including setup and positioning of racking. Consider what path you would follow to pick an order that includes one of every item that you carry in the most sufficient manner.

Locations in your warehouse should sort in a logical fashion. For example, you may divide your warehouse into zones, such as A for the front half of the warehouse, B for the back half, and Yard for the area you store larger items such as ducting. You may break your zones into sections and your sections into aisles. Each aisle may have shelves, and each shelf may have bins in which you keep smaller items such as fittings. However you lay out your warehouse space, create an easy to follow numbering system that identifies the exact location a picker or stock person goes for a product.

For example, consider any of the following number schemes:

If you use bar code labeling, create a bar code for every location in your warehouse.

For additional information about warehouse layout and bar code labeling, see Bar Coding Warehouse Locations.

See Also:

Manual Warehouse Management Setup Overview