Different Types of Warehouses
Warehouses may seem like a simple, straightforward concept, but they actually include a variety of different types of warehouses that all have their own niche. The type of warehousing that’s right for you depends on your specific industry, location, and needs. From private warehousing, distribution centers, and climate-controlled warehouses, there’s an option to suit every business.
Warehouses may seem like a simple, straightforward concept, but they actually include a variety of different types of warehouses that all have their own niche. The type of warehousing that’s right for you depends on your specific industry, location, and needs. From private warehousing, distribution centers, and climate-controlled warehouses, there’s an option to suit every business.
Distribution Center
Distribution centers are warehouses where goods are stored temporarily. In these warehouses products are received from suppliers, sorted and packed and then rapidly shipped out to customers. An example of a distribution center is a warehouse that handles perishable products. They will receive shipments in the morning and distribute them by the end of the same day.
Private Warehouse
These warehouses are privately owned and generally used by retail corporations or engineering companies to store their inventory.
Public Warehouse
Public warehouses can be leased to companies with short-term distribution needs. For example, retailers with their own private warehouse may seek out additional storage space at a public warehouse just to keep surplus of inventory for a short while. Once spaces free up in their own warehouse, they’ll discontinue the use of the public space. Private warehouses will have higher fixed costs but lower unit operating costs, whereas the public warehouses will potentially cost you higher in terms of variable costs.
Automated Warehouse
Automated warehouses are, nearly completed automated. With very little manpower required for supervision, these warehouses operate using the latest software technology, cranes, and carriers to maintain and carry out their duties.
Climate-Controlled Warehouse
Warehouses store many different products, often including those that need to be kept at a specific temperature. Items that require special handling conditions should be kept in a climate-controlled warehouse. This can range from freezing temperatures to keep frozen products in tact to humidity-controlled environments for delicate botanical products and even dirt-free facilities to keep sensitive computer equipment safe. Moreover, they are control environments to ensure desired quality and usability with humidity, microorganism prevention mechanisms.
Retail Warehouse
Retail warehouses are stores dealing in consumer goods that are operated in single-level buildings. Generally, they are limited to 1000 square meter retail spaces. The floor space is mostly majorly allocated to sales with some of the space also being utilized for back office and storage purposes.
Fulfillment Warehouse
Fulfillment warehouses are third-party warehouses used by e-Commerce companies to control costs and manage strategic benefits. The products are lifted from the seller site and stored here until they are dispatched for delivery after processing.
Hazmat Warehouse
This is an abbreviation for the Hazardous Materials Warehouse which is designed to safely store chemicals and physically dangerous substances. It also includes radioactive and biologically dangerous materials. Special provisions are made because these substances can damage their surrounding environment and put lives at risk. In cases of Hazmat warehouses, compliance is also a primary factor in design. Government agencies are involved to ensure safety at such sites.
Overseas Warehouses
These warehouses are catered for the overseas trade. In cross-border trade e-commerce, overseas warehouses refer to domestic enterprises transporting commodities to target market countries through bulk transportation, establishing warehouses and storing commodities locally, then, according to the local sales order, the one-stop control and management service of sorting, packaging and distribution will be carried out directly from the local warehouse in a timely manner.
Packing Warehouses
The main purpose of packing warehouses was the picking, checking, labelling and packing of goods for export. Railway Warehouses These warehouses were built close to the major stations in railway hubs.
Canal Warehouses
Canal warehouses were used for trans-shipment and storage.
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Overview of Warehouse Processes
The basic function of a warehouse is to store goods. This means that they receive deliveries from suppliers, do any necessary checking and sorting, store the materials until it is dispatched to customers. Traditionally warehouses were seen as places for the long-term storage of goods. Now organizations want to optimize their customer experience and try to move materials quickly through the supply chain, so the role of warehousing has changed.
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Transport operations are often divided into full load and part load and due to economies of scale, the unit costs are higher for part loads. Our customer needs several part loads delivering, so it can reduce costs by consolidating these into full loads. Then it gets all the part loads delivered to a warehouse near the suppliers, consolidates them into full loads, and pays the lower costs of full-load transport to its operations.
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The Outbound process starts with routing the shipments. The Outbound execution process starts from the point when pick tasks are completed for an outbound shipment and ends at the point where the outbound packages are loaded into trailers. The Warehouse Outbound process includes managing and controlling outgoing materials starting from the download of orders through to the shipping of products from the warehouse.
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Types of Order Picking Methods in the Warehouse
There are many different types of picking in a warehouse and each one works as a customized solution for each business. Depending on the size of your warehouse and inventory, the manpower you have on hand, and the number of customer orders made each day, there may be certain methods that are more efficient for you than others.
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One of the warehousing best practices that retailers like Walmart, Amazon, and Target have adopted is known as cross-docking. During this process the inbound products are unloaded at a distribution center and then sorted by destination, and eventually reloaded onto outbound trucks. In real parlance, the goods are not at all warehoused but just moved across the dock (hence the name).
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Types of Inventory Count Processes
While dealing with lots of inventory in a warehouse, lots of things can go wrong. Shipments may not have the right number of units in them, or they could get damaged somewhere along the supply chain. Discrepancies in the stock may arise as part of every inventory control, and need to be corrected immediately after the inventory control procedure has been finished.
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Business Case of Multiple Warehouses
Adding extra warehouses to business provides many benefits such as reducing shipping costs, increasing storage capacity, and having warehouses for specific purposes to simplify overall warehouse management. Multiple warehouses allow you to organize your inventory in a way that helps your business be more effective.
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Before shipping, businesses need to make sure that the items will arrive in good condition. Packaging is a form of protection against environmental threats that the product will face from the time it leaves warehouse facility until the time it reached the customer. The packaging is intended to provide protection for the item as it is being handled in the warehouse or when the item is being shipped.
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At a high level, the essential elements in a warehouse are an arrival bay, a storage area, a departure bay, a material handling system and an information management system. As part of the process for enabling a warehouse layout, you must define warehouse zone groups, and zones, location types, and locations.
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Warehouse management and distribution logistics involve the physical warehouse where products are stored, as well as the receipt and movement of goods takes place. Warehouse management aims to control the storage and movement of products and materials within a warehouse. These operations include the receipting of inwards goods, tracking, stacking and stock movement through the warehouse.
