Components of On-demand Warehousing

While designing an On-demand warehouse we recommend the following four key

components in mind: Categorization of warehouses, Safety & Security, Storage Space,
Turnover, and Traffic Management. These components are based on the principles of FAST
– Flow, Accessibility, Space, and Throughput.

Categorizing the warehouses: We recommend categorizing our warehouses based on the

following uses. This is evolved from Amazon’s categorization of their own fulfillment
warehouses.

Size of goods – Large, Small and non-sortable: Processes items which can fit into a
large, or small boxes and too large for box shipment.

Usage of Warehouses – Replenishment and Customer/Supplier Return: Transfer of

goods from manufacturers to other centers and returns for damaged, missing,
unsatisfactory, or incorrectly shipped items.

Type of Items – Specialty, Grocery and Cold Storage: High dollar items such as
jewelry or specialty apparel together and dry foods, perishable items together. The cold
storage facilities will feature temperature & humidity control in

Safety & Security: A key consideration in the design of any warehouse. Maintenance of
machinery and tools being used will be of primary importance along with periodical training of
personnel to ensure adherence to safety standards.

Safety programs will be conducted to ensure the minimization of hazards in the warehouse. This
will be in the form of training and drills. There shall not be any compromise on the safety of the
workers. There will be CCTV camera-related data and 24x7 security guards.

Dimensions

The first step would be to minimize space for office, work areas, machinery storage as minimum
as possible while maximizing space for operational storage and stock processing purposes.
Edgistify’s products can be deployed to optimize the utilization of the warehouse area. There
will be the deployment of sensors and IoT devices that will help enable us to study these
elements.

Flow accessibility is a key element of this part. Our aim is to incorporate flexibility into the
operation, by selecting the dimension that best meets the current profile of goods and
customizing it as the business evolves to meet future requirements. This is not expensive
provided we still consider the other principles of flow, accessibility, and throughput while
working on space.

Traffic Management

Since On-demand warehouses do not have big lead times, it becomes imperative for carefully
manage traffic snarls. We shall focus on designating into specific areas such as forklift-only or
foot-only areas in order to prevent potential cross-traffic and work effectively.

There will be a logical sequence of operations in the warehouse where each activity is located as
close as possible to the function that precedes and follows it. The controlled and uninterrupted
movement of materials, people, cargo, and traffic will be identified to avoid a cross-flow or areas
of high traffic density.

It’s also critical to know where materials are located within the system, and the status and
location in the storage and handling equipment and medium. The aim here should be to situate
the various warehouse activities so that each contributes to a smooth flow of operations with a
minimum amount of movement and disruption

Turnover

Turnover is an important aspect of any on-demand warehouse. We divide the items based on the
frequency of turnover. The next step would be to divide by size and the mass of these items. By
planning ahead of schedule and incorporating FIFO (first-in-first-out) to the items enables us to
not only get items out quickly but help the vendor identify which goods are slow-moving.

The velocity of the product helps us understand the volume of goods moving through each day.
You will need to determine pick period activities as well as minimum activity levels. High With
the availability of accurate throughput data will help us identify the peak activity as well as
minimum activity levels and will aid in the design or layout.