Warehouse Layout Critical to Productivity

FLOOR LANES CRITICAL

Of all equipment used in the warehouse, the most rapid movers are normally the lift trucks as they go about handling stock to meet tight intake and delivery deadlines. Ironically, in the complicated quest for a better logistics setup the presence of these vehicles is frequently overlooked and managers are often puzzled why all the careful planning resulted in a site where turning a circle is difficult, access sometimes totally impossible, and employees feel as though they are crossing a busy and dangerous highway.

According to Crown Equipment’s Craig Kenchington, it is a fundamental, but very common error to ignore the importance of planning around the forklift and lift truck fleet.


“Any warehouse setting up from scratch is making a major investment in racking and storage equipment and is mindful of gaining optimal use from it,” says Kenchington. “Not planning the factory floor around forklift trucks is like not taking into account container ships when planning a port facility, or discounting the physical requirements of planes when laying down plans for an airport.

“Our core business is selling and maintaining forklift trucks, but over the years we have been asked to resolve a considerable number of floor layout concerns, and as a result Crown has become a consultant on warehouse floor layout for companies frightened of productivity breakdowns if any wrong decisions are made.”

Kenchington outlines several potential problems that are symptomatic of poor factory and warehouse floor layout.

Damaged racking

Racking is expensive and is easily damaged by forklift tines or the sides or rear impacts. Setting protective bollards is one solution, but the real objective should be to set up a highly functional racking and floor layout from the start. Bollards are hard objects and can cause damage to an expensive lift truck and potentially force it away from active service, hence the downtime is costly.

Optimizing rack position sets out to give materials handling equipment as much room to move as possible, keeping the traffic flowing, and to utilize vertical space to maximize storage and allow fast and safe handling by high reach trucks.

Traffic jams and turning problems

Materials flow is still part of the warehouse equation when forklift trucks are handling it. If lift trucks have to frequently make way for one another, queue and wait while other units go about their business, or find areas of the floor where turning and access is difficult or impossible, then the materials handling staff behind the wheel eventually feel as though the racking is a hindrance rather than a storage facility.

Dangers to personnel

Warehouse layout of insufficient standard can result in debilitating injury to personnel and cost companies in terms of compensation and warehouse safety.

Although lift truck activity can involve the majority of ground space within a warehouse, clever floor layout can isolate heavy traffic areas, thereby keeping vehicles and foot personnel as far apart as possible, minimizing the chance of injury.

Dock areas need to be linked

Warehouse layout and planning should not end in the main part of the factory/warehouse. Unhindered, direct access should also link this section with whatever dock facilities are being used. It is not uncommon for company staff to put a huge amount of energy into what they see as an efficient layout for floor staff, to find out when it is too late that the transport link between shop floor and transport dock is inconvenient, blocked, or worse still, a dangerous path on which to take a lift truck.

Poor use of vertical space

Wise use of vertical space is the difference between efficient ‘first time’ pallet handling and costly double-handling.

Every company is different. Some perform a lot of cross docking, some store items for long periods, some move many different small items between racking spaces, others operate strictly on full pallets and others handle unusual or large shapes.

This means it takes a trained eye to deduce how best to construct the off-the-ground operating space. Racking must work in harmony with lift truck equipment and the equipment must suit the frequency of movement and size of pallets and/or cartons.

For instance, if a full-pallet mover transferred units frequently, the ideal solution would be a configuration that reaches two pallets deep and a lift truck that has the capability to reach that far.

Racking isn’t merely for storing stock, it has to undergo optimized positioning for stock handling and then it has to work in harmony with lift trucks and their operators.

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