A Few Thoughts on Storage and Inventory Control Mar 7, 2007 12:15 PM
, By Kate Vitasek
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Storage and inventory control processes include the activities related to holding material and the processes of counting and transacting the material as it moves through the warehouse. The layout of a warehouse that supports an adjoining manufacturing facility will have different requirements than a facility supporting product distribution or a facility that supports end user fulfillment. Some operations place emphasis on replenishment of product to the point of use; others emphasize product picking or order fulfillment.
Regardless of the ultimate mission of the warehouse, however, best-practice companies have designed storage systems to meet the needs of the current and planned mix of storage types. They have optimized storage locations and layouts to fit product without the need to restack or repalletize it once received. The warehouse management system will track storage location profiles and properly assign product to the best storage location. As a result, best-practice companies have excellent cube fill rates.
In addition to optimizing the cubic fill of storage locations, best practice is to minimize travel time. If a product is in high demand it should be placed closer to its next point of use. In this case, demand should be based on the number times the product is required, not the number of units required. The difficulty of retrieval should also be considered in travel time; higher-demand product should be placed on the most easily accessed storage space, typically floor level for racking and between waist and shoulder level in pick racks.
Not all companies are required to track product by lot or serial number, but among those that are, best-practice companies have integrated that capability into their warehouse and shipping processes and use the system of record to manage the lot and serial number data.
Most companies put a lot of effort into the initial layout of the warehouse; however, industry surveys will tell you that as many as half of companies do not have an ongoing process in place to review their layouts. Reviewing how storage areas are configured and having processes in place to reconfigure them as product mix changes is considered best practice and is critical to maintaining high levels of space utilization and efficiency. Making continuous small adjustments to racks, shelving, and other storage equipment can greatly improve space utilization.
Kate Vitasek is founder of Bellevue, WA-based operations consultancy Supply Chain Visions (www.scvisions.com).
A Few Thoughts on Storage and Inventory Control 
