One of the most common (and ongoing) issues with warehouses is the need for accessibility and proper layout design. Proper accessibility can help your workers handle their tasks and duties more easily, prevent accidents, and smooth out any sort of traffic or performance issues your warehouse may encounter. Whatever size your facility is, there’s likely something you can do to improve the accessibility and usability of your warehouse, and we’ve got a few ideas here for anything you may consider reviewing to improve the accessibility and traffic flow of your warehouse.

Increase The Size Of Your Receiving Area

No matter what products you deal in or what industries you serve, the receiving area should always be one of the biggest areas of your warehouse, if not the biggest. Your staff will need a large amount of room to deal with the influx of new items and the amount of items headed back out into the world, and any sort of overflow from this area could clog the rest of your warehouse if your workers don’t have enough space to handle their tasks. Make sure you devote the biggest section of your warehouse to serve as the shipping and receiving area to prevent further traffic jams and give your workers the room they need to get the job done.

Use Vertical Space

No matter how tall your wire shelving or warehouse shelving might be, there’s likely still a lot of other ways the overhead room in your warehouse can be used. Look into ways to maximize the headroom of your warehouse by stacking higher or installing warehouse mezzanines to add a second level of storage where you need it most.

Keep Aisles As Open As Possible

Free space to travel and work is one of the most important aspects of warehouse accessibility, and cramped aisles are a problem basically anywhere you go. Expand your aisleways to ensure both your workers and your motorized equipment have room to travel (forklifts and the like) to prevent accidents and allow your workers the accessibility they need to get wherever they’re trying to go.

Give Items A Permanent Home

Too many times, warehouses will give their merchandise a temporary ‘landing zone’ before it has to be relocated to its next destination back on the shelves. This tends to cramp traffic and reduce productivity, both of which can begin impacting your bottom line if you’re not careful. Make sure when your items and shipments are processed in receiving, their next destination is the place they’re going to stay until it’s time to send them off to clients or customers.

Replace Stairs with Ramps

There’s obviously going to be areas where this isn’t a viable option, but wherever possible, replacing your staircases with ramps will drastically improve travel time and accessibility for workers and inventory. Particularly in high-traffic areas or anywhere that bulkier goods need to be transported, ramps are a quicker (and in many cases safer) way to transport items and free up floor traffic for other work needs.