In today’s industrial settings, warehouse storage and material handling can be one of the biggest challenges for businesses. This is where automated storage solutions come in to help. By upgrading to modern and intelligent warehouse storage solutions, companies can cut real estate costs, reduce manual labor, and increase worker productivity.

Discover these six essential tips to help you detect inefficiencies in your facility workflows and learn what to consider when searching for a solution that can benefit your company the most.

Get dense!

Maximize open overhead space by storing goods up high. This will help you ensure maximum success and use of space. Pallet racking is an excellent solution to building upwards in your warehouse. Pallet racks hold considerable weight, allowing for higher storage solutions.

Have humans & robots work next to each other, not in the way of each other.

Consider separating the automated storage areas and human work areas. Then create hand-off areas where automated workflows and human workflows meet. These hand-off areas could reduce the amount of walking required by warehouse workers. 

Store identical SKUs close together.

You can maximize storage efficiency by storing the same SKUs in multiple containers close together. This will help reduce time and travel and allow an order to be fulfilled and pushed through faster.

Use automated storage solutions to extend labor.

Allow your human workers to concentrate on more tedious and detail-oriented tasks. Use automated storage solutions to optimize moving steps, such as pass-off points or retrieving items on higher shelves.

Ask questions and test the automation under stressful conditions.

How long will software modifications take? Determine the time it has taken for past customers from the start of the modification to being fully operational. What parts of the system will be out of service during an expansion?

Create rhythm.

Implement standardized storage units to increase repetition, speed, and high-efficiency movements throughout the entire automated system and with human interfacing. Repetition creates a rhythm that can help humans be more efficient, too – when people can reliably anticipate what is coming, they can best anticipate their subsequent actions, helping to increase order-fill-speed and throughput.

By implementing these tips, and integrating automated storage solutions, businesses can optimize their warehouse storage and material handling processes, reduce operating costs, and increase worker productivity. With the latest solutions to improve operations, industrial storage and organization, companies can better serve their customers and help them achieve their business goals.