{"id":58326,"date":"2024-09-25T13:34:37","date_gmt":"2024-09-25T17:34:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.flexpipeinc.com\/?p=58326"},"modified":"2026-01-30T14:57:05","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T19:57:05","slug":"optimizing-warehouse-layout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flexpipeinc.com\/ca_en\/optimizing-warehouse-layout\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Lean Strategies for Optimizing Your Warehouse Layout"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Running a lean and efficient warehouse provides endless benefits for warehouse managers and employees. Warehouse waste reduction lowers costs, improves employee morale, simplifies material handling, and ensures a seamless workflow. With the right warehouse layout optimization strategies, inventory damage is minimized. However, getting there requires a plan, one where your warehouse layout is maximized for efficiency and complemented with customized material handling carts, trolleys, flow racks, and other structures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Want to master all aspects of lean warehousing?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Get our comprehensive 57-page guide to reducing waste and optimizing warehouse operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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DOWNLOAD FREE GUIDE<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The Simplicity of Lean Processes<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Warehouse managers who embrace lean concepts rely upon well-established continuous improvement<\/a> methodologies like Kaizen and 5S. Kaizen emerged from the Toyota Production System (TPS). It borrows aspects of statistical process control, and the Shewhart Cycle \u2013 a simple but incredibly effective process commonly used in manufacturing and often referred to as the PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5S stands for Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain. It is a continuous improvement methodology aimed at improving workflow by streamlining individual workstations so that all parts, materials, tools, and consumables have their rightful place and are easily found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By combining Kaizen\u2019s focus on warehouse waste reduction, 5S\u2019s ability to create an improved workflow and more organized workstations, and the Shewhart Cycle\u2019s simple process of identifying problems and eliminating them, warehouse managers can enact substantive changes that increase efficiencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is some insight into some simple warehouse layout optimization strategies with examples of modular systems for warehouses.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Strategy 1: Eliminate Motion Waste with Efficient Kitting and Picking Carts<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Motion waste is perhaps the most overlooked of the eight forms of waste in Kaizen. Motion waste in manufacturing refers to any movements or repetitive processes that do not add value. In terms of warehouse management, this can include warehouse employees performing redundant and repetitive material handling tasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think about how much time your employees spend traveling to different parts of your warehouse to store or pick up different materials and finished goods. Think about what\u2019s involved when those employees perform these material handling tasks. Warehouses must allow for efficient material handling movements. There should be a seamless transition when moving items from one warehouse location to another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Warehouse employees encounter issues in material handling, such as having to move these items with kitting and picking carts that can\u2019t support the weight of materials or items, don\u2019t have proper placement locations or storage areas for materials, consumables, or bins, or don\u2019t properly secure large materials or parts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To better understand this problem, think about the two most common carts found in warehouses. The one on the left is a standard welded platform truck and the one on the right is a simple two-level welded cart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Both carts lead to a substantial amount of motion waste. Neither of them allows warehouse employees to properly secure materials or parts. Neither provides slots or designated locations so that warehouse employees can properly store parts and maximize their transit times. Instead, the material is allowed to move freely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In most situations, warehouse employees simply pile on as much as possible onto these carts as a way of cutting down their material handling transit times. Invariably, inventory damage becomes commonplace. The material often falls off platform trucks or even causes injury to other warehouse employees if the material exceeds the platform\u2019s width.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of the two-level welded cart, with no placement locations for bins, material, or parts, inventory damage occurs frequently as these items are allowed to hit or bounce off each other. In every measurable way, both carts lead to high levels of warehouse waste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Flexpipe Kitting and Picking Carts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

With Flexpipe\u2019s steel tube and joint system, warehouses can create, assemble, and change customized kitting carts and picking carts. These can be specifically designed to hold materials, parts, and consumables with different profiles and part geometries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each Flexpipe cart<\/a> can be configured to support a different-sized material and support that material with safety foam to ensure parts are not damaged or become dislodged.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flexpipe kitting and picking carts can be designed and assembled with customized bin locations to ensure the safe transport of materials, consumables, and parts directly to their destination. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parts don\u2019t move, and won\u2019t become damaged, and warehouse employees can only place the right-sized parts in their proper locations to properly transport materials to their location.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether it\u2019s a stand-alone warehouse solely responsible for processing incoming and outgoing shipments or a warehouse that supports manufacturing, Flexpipe kitting carts and picking carts provide endless advantages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For warehouses responsible for providing kitting bins to production, Flexpipe kitting carts can be assembled so that a complete kit can be provided to manufacturing with just a single transit time. That kitting cart can then travel through production until its eventual return to the warehouse for the next kitting requirement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Customized Flexpipe kitting carts can be designed and assembled with right-sized placement locations for bins, materials, production packages, work orders, and other instructions. Easily changed and modified to fit any material handling need, Flexpipe carts can be made to fit between any standing shelving or racking.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Flexpipe kitting and picking carts can be configured for any material dimensional requirements. This kitting cart includes electrostatic discharge (ESD) material, boards, and panels of different sizes for one kit requirement. The kitting department adjacent to the warehouse assembles the kit \u2013 ensures that each is placed in the right-sized location and then the entire kitting cart is provided to production.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Strategy 2: Minimize Inventory & Motion Waste with FIFO Flow Racks<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Companies typically have two options in terms of how they manage or consume inventory. They can adopt a Last-In-First-Out (LIFO) approach where the inventory received this week is used before the inventory received in the prior weeks. However, this involves holding older inventory longer which means inventory carrying costs \u2013 financing, inventory damage, obsolescence, storage, and handling \u2013 are higher, which means warehouse and inventory waste is higher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LIFO increases the cost of goods sold (COGS)<\/a> which means profit margins are lower on sales. However, LIFO provides some tax advantages as a company\u2019s taxes are lower when running LIFO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, running a lean warehouse doesn\u2019t lend itself well to the waste within LIFO. The goal of a lean warehouse is to minimize inventory carrying costs, which means having an inventory that is used or consumed quickly. Just-In-Time (JIT) inventory and supply chain management is an essential aspect of Kaizen and lean methodologies. JIT reduces inventory waste by focusing on quick-moving inventory. LIFO doesn\u2019t do that, but FIFO does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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FIFO inventory practices reduce the cost of goods sold (COGS) because FIFO ensures that the first inventory received within the warehouse is used first. In layman\u2019s terms, inventory received last week would be used before any inventory received this week or next. With FIFO, inventory carrying costs \u2013 in terms of financing, storage, handling, obsolescence, etc. \u2013 is lower and therefore the profit on sales is higher.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Flexpipe\u2019s FIFO flow racking systems are the ideal solution for running lean FIFO warehouse management practices.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Slightly angled roller tracks<\/a> ensure that bins and packages are held in place by the bins and packages in front of them. Stoppers at the bottom of each level ensure the next bin or package is safely secured. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Multiple Flexpipe FIFO flow racks in use within a warehouse.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Easily customized, Flexpipe FIFO flow racks can be adjusted or modified, allowing for the inclusion of additional stocking levels, a wider rack, or additional roller tracks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inventory waste is minimized with Flexpipe flow racking. Damage to inventory is less likely to occur both because of how securely the inventory is held and because of how quickly the inventory is used. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Flexpipe FIFO flow racking, inventory is stored in the rack from behind, ensuring that the inventory in front (older inventory) is used first. Motion waste is also eliminated as warehouse employees aren\u2019t forced to constantly adjust packages or materials on shelves to perform their pick and place responsibilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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With Flexpipe, you can customize your FIFO flow racks to match the exact size of the packages and bins your warehouse receives, moves, and ships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Strategy 3: Reduce Waiting Waste with Flexible Workstations<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Another often overlooked form of waste includes waiting for waste. In Kaizen, this is commonly referred to as unused resources or misused talent. However, they ultimately mean the same thing; employees standing idle because of uneven workflows, poor work instructions, or because they lack the proper tools and consumables to complete their material handling processes. All are forms of waste.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In many instances, warehouse employees will travel repeatedly to get tools or consumables to perform a specific work task. This form of waste is easily solved with a mobile workstation.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Flexpipe steel tube and joint system allows for the design and assembly of customized mobile warehouse workstations that can easily be positioned at different warehouse locations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This mobile Flexpipe warehouse workstation perfectly encapsulates the importance of adopting 5S practices \u2013 Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By using Flexpipe Kaizen foam, each tool has its proper place. The Kaizen foam acts as a fail-safe Poka Yoke solution that ensures only the specific tool fits in the given slot.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Poka Yoke<\/a> is a common approach in Kaizen philosophy and is used to eliminate human error. Instead of randomly throwing tools and consumables on a welded cart where they can damage one another, this Flexpipe mobile workstation ensures every consumable, tool, and material needed is properly secured and protected.<\/p>\n\n\n

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With Flexpipe\u2019s steel tubes and joint system, mobile 5S workstations can be created in any configuration and use simple Poka Yoke solutions like Kaizen foam to ensure warehouse employees put the right parts and consumables back in the correct places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Strategy 4: Enhance Efficiency with Narrow Aisle Pushing Carts<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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One of the more common forms of waste within warehouses is when the physical space between in-place shelving makes it extremely difficult for warehouse employees to perform common pick-and-place work tasks. This issue is only made worse by fixed welded carts whose dimensions leave little to no room for warehouse employees.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

In many instances, warehouse employees must move welded carts back and forth to access different portions of the inventory on racks. This unnecessarily wastes time and can be a safety concern as employees must constantly work around obstructions.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flexipe steel tube and joint system is a simple solution that allows for the design and assembly of narrow-aisle push carts and trolleys. Instead of adjusting existing in-place shelving to accommodate a fixed welded cart, the approach is to design and assemble a customized narrow-aisle Flexpipe cart to fit the current space between that shelving. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Flexpipe narrow-aisle cart can be customized for maximum efficiency, giving warehouse employees more than enough room between tight-fitting, in-place shelving and racking.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Strategy 5: Optimize Space Utilization with Customizable Packing and Cutting Stations<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Fixed-structure packaging stations are not the ideal solution when adopting lean methodologies<\/a>. Given how often packaging requirements change within warehouses, fixed-welded packaging stations are anything but efficient. Consuming more space than needed, fixed welded workstations lead to high amounts of waste and inefficiency. They consume important space, can\u2019t be changed, and quickly become obsolete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Optimize Your Packing Station with Lean Principles<\/strong> \ud83c\udfa5<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Check out this short video to see how an effective packing station setup can eliminate waste and boost efficiency in your order fulfillment process. Learn how the right layout, tools, and ergonomic setup can help you implement Lean<\/em> principles in your packing stations. \ud83d\udc47<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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