Poor Organization Can Stifle Your Shipment Warehouse's Growth

The recipe for business growth is much like that of a stew - you need a lot of different ingredients. One essential ingredient is organization. For shipment centers, a lack of organization can send business growth in the wrong direction and create long-term financial losses. Learn how poor organization can affect your company.

Productivity and organization go hand-in-hand. Wherever there is reduced productivity, there is often an increased risk for decreased profits, as well. Poor organization in any industry makes simple tasks more challenging for employees, which increases the amount of time it takes to perform their duties.

Take your shipping warehouse, for example. For the team to meet their quota each day, each order needs to be fulfilled in a set period, such as 10 minutes. If an employee must look all over the warehouse for the items they need to fulfill the order, they could very easily exceed this time threshold.

The more significant problem this creates is that it puts the entire team in a revolving state of catchup. Every item in the warehouse should have a dedicated space to support, or increase, productivity levels.    

Another critical ingredient in the recipe for business growth is customer satisfaction. But making your customers happy is increasingly harder when organization is a problem. Consider the earlier example of the slowed order fulfillment process, for instance. When an order takes longer to fulfill, this means that it takes longer for the customer to receive their shipment.

Customers may view an order delay unfavorably, especially if you quoted a specific delivery time. Customer dissatisfaction could potentially lead them to take their business elsewhere, which is never good for growth. Poor organization can also hinder the accuracy of customer orders, which is also viewed unfavorably.

When your employees can quickly access items in the warehouse, order fulfillment times are quicker, order accuracy increases, and your customers are more satisfied.    

Space is a common concern in most warehouse environments, small and large. For operations to run smoothly, there needs to be ample space for materials, room for employees to navigate, as well as room for any equipment, such as forklifts.

If you have a lack of space in your warehouse, the problem may not be that the facility is too small. The problem could be that the lack of organization is preventing you from using the space efficiently.

To better organize and take advantage of your space, try using a pallet rack system. Instead of storing multiple racks of materials on the ground, you can store these items on a vertical pallet rack that takes up around the same space of a single pallet. The taller the rack system, the more items you can store and the more floor space you can free.

Growth isn't just about producing more - it's also about earning more. But the only way a business can earn more is to control their operating costs. When organization is an issue in a shipping warehouse, the threat of inventory damage increases.

Items might be stacked on top of each other, liquid goods could be stored next to dry goods, and a host of other problems could arise that could lead to inventory damage. Unfortunately, damaged inventory doesn't pay for itself, which means your operating costs increase.

Shelves, pallet racks, and other organized storage systems protect your inventory, which can ultimately help lower the threat of damage.

Apply these tips to increase organization in your facility and send your business growth efforts in the right direction. From shelving systems to pallet racks to mezzanines, at Lone Star Pallet Rack, we have a range of storage and installation solutions to help you use your space more efficiently. Contact us today.