Supply Chain Warehousing Services - Overview

Warehouses serve as the central hub within supply chain networks, encompassing various types such as distribution centers, cross-dock facilities, and consolidation hubs. Their primary function involves receiving products from suppliers, processing customer returns, and handling goods from internal facilities. Warehouses play a pivotal role in storing, assembling, and efficiently dispatching products to meet the ever-growing demands of both business customers and consumers.

Warehouses are essential for businesses to operate with safety and efficiency, enabling them to provide top-tier customer service while simultaneously minimizing operational expenses. Achieving this balance necessitates meticulous design and planning, encompassing various critical factors, such as:

  • Labour planning and management: Strategically planning labor resources to meet service targets at the lowest possible cost and efficiently managing labor to ensure smooth operations across all shifts.
  • Layout Optimization: Optimizing the flow of materials within the warehouse, from the receipt of goods to their dispatch, to enhance efficiency and reduce handling times.
  • Storage solutions: Utilizing space optimally and implementing storage solutions that support efficient put-away and replenishment, whether for bulk items, pallets, or individual units.
  • Automation: Introducing automation into the warehouse operations aims to lower labor costs by leveraging materials handling equipment, optimizing storage to reduce rental expenses through space efficiency, and enhancing safety and compliance standards.
  • Technology: Deploying a Warehouse Management System (WMS) tailored to the unique requirements of the warehouse, offering choices like cloud-based and Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions, serves to reduce initial capital investments and ongoing maintenance expenses.

Warehouses must be tailored to meet specific requirements, and our team is dedicated to working with businesses, aiding them in making informed decisions regarding their warehouse design.

Our team boasts extensive expertise in the design, optimization, sourcing, and management of warehouses, drawing from both industry-specific knowledge and consulting perspectives.

We have an impressive track record of successfully implementing warehouse technology across diverse sectors. Our expertise encompasses everything from specialized cloud solutions to full-fledged Warehouse Management Systems (WMS).

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Key Capabilities

Warehouse Design

Businesses should prioritize warehouse design that aligns with their lead time requirements to meet customer commitments while simultaneously minimizing operating costs.

It's essential to establish a clear understanding of the objective for each warehouse within the network and how it contributes to the overall supply chain strategy from the very beginning.

WWe collaborate with businesses to create a conceptual design tailored to their market strategy, SKU profiles, and growth plans. During this stage of the design process, we evaluate layout options and automation levels, ranging from fully manual warehouses to highly automated ones.

Throughout this process, we conduct a comprehensive assessment of the costs and benefits associated with the preferred warehouse design option. This evaluation allows us to quantify the return on investment and provide valuable insights to inform the business case.

In the final stage of the warehouse design process, we delve into the detailed design of the preferred option. This involves specifying all the necessary details in preparation for sourcing the property, materials handling equipment, and, if required, third-party logistics service providers to efficiently manage the warehouse operations.

Our experienced team, coupled with our wide-ranging expertise across multiple industry sectors, enables us to support businesses at every stage, from the initial design phase through to seamless operations.

Warehouse Optimisation

Our experienced team specializes in conducting comprehensive diagnostics of warehouse operations, pinpointing areas with potential for improvement, and then developing actionable business cases and implementation plans to drive tangible enhancements.

Our arsenal of tools includes capability assessment templates, benchmarks, and well-established diagnostic methodologies, which enable us to deliver quick and effective insights for businesses seeking to improve their warehouse operations.

We can swiftly evaluate the efficiency of existing operations and collaborate with business teams to formulate an improvement plan, typically encompassing the following components:

  • Workforce planning and management: Labor costs often constitute the most significant expense within a warehouse operation. Consequently, businesses must focus on enhancing productivity to effectively lower their operational expenses..
  • Layout, slotting, and material flow: Travel time can significantly contribute to labor costs while being unproductive. To minimize these expenses, businesses should organize their products efficiently to reduce travel time..
  • Equipment: Businesses must prioritize the accurate specification of equipment to meet both safety and operational needs effectively.
  • Technology: A well-designed and appropriate Warehouse Management System (WMS) is crucial for optimizing warehouse performance.

Warehouse Sourcing

Warehouse and logistics sourcing sit at the crossroads of supply chain and procurement, which are our primary areas of expertise. As a trusted advisor with a track record of over 100 successful logistics sourcing projects, we bring a wide range of diagnostic tools, frameworks, and methodologies to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the logistics and sourcing process.

We collaborate with businesses to facilitate their warehousing sourcing endeavors. This entails more than just following a set process; it requires in-depth warehousing knowledge, a comprehensive grasp of the supply market, and the capability to assess all the value-enhancing factors associated with warehouse logistics activities.


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