Warehouse makeover : rethinking warehouse organization after growth

Abstract

Year after year, companies must review their growth and activity in order to plan their strategy for the upcoming periods. During the pandemic, a company took the decision to acquire its own warehouse anticipating the company’s expected growth after the recovery of the sector in which it operates - provision of services and technology in the hotel sector - having, however, suffered with the cancellation of contracts and future projects. In 2022, the company experienced extraordinary growth after its customers reopened their activity, investing in new solutions with the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions. In this situation, it was necessary to rethink the organization of the warehouse, which acts as a place to store stock, organize projects, consolidate purchases, and dispatch goods and projects. After acquiring the property and transferring the stock to the new premises, the warehouse was first organized into areas that had become inefficient with the company’s growth in the last period. Following the action-research methodology, the warehouse was rearranged, and the main logistic processes were mapped. Installing racks organized by geographical areas increased its capacity by 468% and llowed to solve accessibility problems and safety risks. The inventoring process became easier and more reliable. Search engines were created in Excel to map the corresponding physical warehouse location to the PHC warehouse. This article is written after the warehouse reform and focuses on how the warehouse reorganization process impacts the logistics of the activity, what are the advantages and challenges of restructuring the areas for outgoing material and highlights the importance of creating up-to-date tools for the new logistical reality.