If you are looking around your warehouse and seeing lots of half pallets on your standard pallet racking or you buy product by the pallet layer, you will absolutely want to read this
Depending on the percentage of part pallets you have and the height of your warehouse, you may be able to reduce the floor space and achieve the same capacity dramatically, if not more, by using a picking tower.
Why?
The explosion of SKUs and the market’s need for quicker delivery times have placed enormous pressure on warehouses.
Companies need to store more SKUs, pick faster and pick by the case or by the layer.
This can often result in a large number of part pallets being stored in racking, compromising space utilisation, i.e., a lot of empty space between pallets
To maximise space utilisation, some companies will block stack part pallets on top of other part pallets, which compromises picking speeds and endangers the picking team with unstable pallets.
The end result – an inefficient and costly warehouse operation.
However, what if we were to take all the products stored in your warehouse that comprised of less than one pallet, take them off the pallets and move them into a Multi-Tier Picking tower.
These higher-density shelving systems can be optimised to minimise space wastage and provide 100% accessibility for picking.
Still not convinced?
Well, take this example of an actual project we were asked to look at for a client.
We identified that our customer had over 3000 SKUs with under one full pallet of stock. These were taking up 3000 pallets positions in the warehouse. Using our simulator tool and considering the necessary aisle widths for forklift trucks, we could show the client this would require over 1500 square metres of floor space, even storing the pallets 5 high.
However, the height of the warehouse presented the opportunity to create a Picking Tower with 4 floor levels. By simulating the total number of cases and the volume of each, we were able to design and deliver a picking tower measuring just 30 metres wide by 21 metres deep to achieve the same capacity, requiring only 630 square metres.
That equates to 58% less floor space to store the same capacity.
But that only tells part of the story. With every SKU available to pick by hand straight off the shelf without needing a forklift, the client estimated the Pick Tower would improve picking speed by over 25% thanks to the reduced travel distance and motion waste.
Now even on these metrics alone, isn’t this something you should consider exploring.
For more information or to discuss your warehouse operations contact us now.
