Choosing a new warehouse space can be transformative to your business, so the choice should be rooted in confident knowledge.
To help you make a better decision for your business, here are our tips on what to consider before making the move to a new warehouse:
1. How much additional space does your warehouse need?
Ask yourself:
- Are we making full use of the space we already have?
- Could our storage solutions be optimized to support additional stock?
- Can we create floor space in our current building by adjusting the layout?
- Are we forecasting based on accurate data?
2. Are you in full control of inventory management?
For businesses that deal with high volumes, inventory can slip through the cracks. Things get lost or misplaced in cavernous warehouses.
Before deciding to move to a new warehouse, you should get your inventory management system ship-shape. This will help make the moving process easier and ensure your move to a new warehouse starts off on the right foot.
To get started:
- Consider cutting slow-moving inventory from your selection
- Put a team in charge of going through unopened, unlabeled, or ‘miscellaneous’ boxes and establishing their contents
- If you’re having issues with inaccurate inventory, it might be time for a complete system overhaul
- Ensure there’s no leftover stock in your warehouse that your business doesn’t carry anymore
- Recognize that there’s more innovative ways to manage inventory than to just set minimum stock levels — we live in a time where technology is thriving, utilize it!
3. Is your inventory visibility as good as it should be?
Even in a larger space, a disorganized business will still be disorganized. To ensure better visibility across your warehouse:
- Improve your labeling/SKU code systems so that products can be identified quickly and easily by all staff members
- Divide stock into logical sections for quick and safe access
- Protect stock from damage with storage solutions that are secure but still allow contents to be clearly identified
- Ensure inbound and outbound processes are streamlined to avoid warehouse overcrowding
Better visibility will help you determine what your current warehouse is lacking and what a new space might offer.
4. Are there any areas of your warehouse that could benefit from automation?
Historically, growth has called for larger facilities. However, with today’s technology, this doesn’t have to be the case.
Everything from order picking to managing your stock can take up valuable time, physical space, and resources. This is where automation might be useful.
With automation systems having developed significantly in recent years, there’s no better time to evaluate how automation can transform your facilities and help boost your business. From robotic product movement to integrated software, the answer to optimizing your warehouse might lie in new technology.
How Pio can help:
Sometimes, the solution to finding more space is to simply optimize the space you already have.
That's why we've created the P100: a plug-and-play automated warehouse system that enables smoother and smarter warehouse fulfillment processes. Designed with the future in mind, the system can be tailored to your exact business needs. As your business grows, the P100 can flex to scale.
If you’re not feeling ready to move your business or would like to adapt to a new and improved way of managing your stock, the P100 gives you the time to focus on making more informed decisions.
With up to 10 times better storage capacity and a design that can be fully optimized to your space, the P100 makes it fast and easy to keep your warehouse in-house. And, even if you still decide to move to a new warehouse, the system can move with you.
Wondering about other benefits? Book a demo of our warehouse system and find out exactly how the P100 can help you work smarter now, and support your next move later.
