The diagnosis is in: Warehouse congestion across the industry has reached epidemic proportion. Package innovation, SKU, volume growth and inventory growth, more frequent deliveries and smaller delivery sizes all have contributed in a compounding fashion to the problem. To resolve such issues,companies must understand the factors that define the ìright sizeîof a warehouse. It is essential to find the right balance of capacity, selectivity and productivity when designing a warehouse.

For those companies that have a significant local sales volume,one obvious area of focus for right sizing is the pick area. Not only has volume and SKU growth caused pick areas to grow at exponential rates,but companies focused on reducing sales and delivery costs have transitioned to a build-by-stop strategy, thus increasing complexity in the pick areas.

Download the full article   (pdf)