Within the supply chain, warehousing logistics is the discipline that includes warehouse activities aimed at storing, protecting, and properly preserving goods for as long as necessary. It also covers the management, transport, location, handling and packaging of products, from their reception to their dispatch.
The warehouse is the actor that regulates the flow of goods between supply and demand. It brings together the management of the materials that the company moves, stores and handles in order to meet its business and productivity needs. It therefore represents the central axis of warehouse storage.
The objectives of warehousing logistics
The ultimate goal of warehousing logistics is to minimize a company’s operating costs while maintaining quality service . In order to find the best combination, follow the advice of our professionals:
- Maximize your storage space .
- Organize your workforce efficiently.
- Take advantage of your available materials handling equipment .
- Try to make your goods accessible on demand.
- Follow the necessary security measures to preserve your goods.
Areas of intervention of warehousing logistics
The heart of warehousing logistics is the warehouse; the main activities that take place there are: reception, storage, preparation of orders and dispatch of goods stack of goods and pallet delivery . In order for all of them to develop properly, it is important to optimize each of their aspects. Here are the basic points you will need to consider:
Your warehouse design
The starting point for the design of a center, and therefore for the proper management of warehouse logistics, is the development of a warehouse plan . If you’re building a new warehouse, you’ll need to adopt a different strategy than you normally would when reviewing its distribution .
Note that the design of a warehouse must imperatively be based on the exhaustive analysis of the needs of the company. As a starting point for warehousing logistics, the center should be designed with a long-term vision and anticipate possible growth opportunities .
Management of your handling equipment and your storage solutions
The management of your materials encompasses all the preparation, addressing, transfer and storage operations of the products. It is therefore a key element of warehousing logistics. Goods handling is the result of the interaction between operators, machines, shelving and working methods that occur during the process of moving, storing and controlling materials.
Storage solutions
There is a wide variety of industrial shelving designed for the storage of pallets and bins or boxes. In order to choose the right storage solution , it is necessary to evaluate the following criteria:
Handling machinery
The number and type of material handling equipment used determines the performance of the company as well as the number of operators it needs to operate . The height and width of the circulation aisles can also have an impact on the distribution of the installations.
Your picking and order preparation processes
The order picking process has a strong impact on certain warehousing logistics strategies. It includes the transport and extraction of products from the shelves, sorting, consolidation, packaging and shipping of orders.
Organizing the picking process is one of the main responsibilities of warehousing logistics. You can adopt different techniques depending on:
The height of your racks where your products are picked: at floor level, at a low, medium or high height. The direction of movement of your goods: whether your operators pick up the products or whether the products come to them via automated solutions.
Managing your stocks and inventories
Inventory management is the area responsible for regulating and optimizing warehouse inventory levels within warehousing logistics. To do this, companies usually rely on the help of computer programs and tools to accurately record stock movements:
The security of your logistics warehouse
Since logistics personnel and stored goods are exposed to a number of risks on a daily basis, security is an element that should not be overlooked in the field of warehousing logistics.
Within the supply chain, warehouse logistics is a discipline that includes warehouse activities focused on the storage, protection and proper preservation of goods for a necessary length of time. It also includes the management, transportation, placement, handling and packaging of products, from their receipt to their dispatch.
