50 things to free up warehouse space

Business is growing and running out of space in the warehouse.  What to do before moving to a new facility or pouring concrete?  Fifty things to consider:

  1. Cross dock
  2. Narrow aisles
  3. Double deep racks
  4. Bridges over aisles, cross aisles, aisle ends, truck doors
  5. Re-slot forward pick locations
  6. Relocate slow movers and consolidate
  7. Change batteries rather than park and charge
  8. Pushback racks
  9. Pallet flow racks
  10. Carton flow racks
  11. Carousels horizontal or vertical
  12. Place top beam at top of uprights, close pack the top deck
  13. Shorter beams; 96″ not 108″
  14. Triple wide beams
  15. Vary beam heights
  16. Double stack pallets
  17. Mobile shelving
  18. Purge excess, slow moving, obsolete
  19. Improve put away and pick cycle time and then cut safety stock
  20. Direct or Drop Ship
  21. Drop items from the catalog
  22. Put carton flow racks under pallet racks
  23. Put pick shelves and bins under pallet racks
  24. Slip sheets or low profile pallets
  25. Daily delivery of new pallets and packaging supplies
  26. Check out bound while picking or loading
  27. Check in bound while unloading or put away
  28. Store more than one item per shelf or pallet
  29. Consolidate partial pallets, cartons, bins
  30. Receive and ship on different shifts
  31. Redesign package
  32. Optimize pallet stacking pattern
  33. Select the right size pallet
  34. Buy/Make to Order
  35. Buy in smaller lots
  36. Ship in smaller lots
  37. Receive and ship more often
  38. Make inbound receipt appointments
  39. Make delivery appointments
  40. Spot out bound trailers & load directly into trailer
  41. Eliminate inbound inspection
  42. Recalculate safety stock
  43. Recalculate order quantities
  44. Sell slow moving, return for credit, fire sale
  45. Donate, scrap, recycle obsolete
  46. Take assemblies apart and sell spare parts
  47. Combine parts in to kits
  48. Reduce the in and out queues
  49. Control SKU proliferation
  50. Pick directly into the shipping container

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