As companies and consumers continue to become more demanding, the warehouse/distribution center (DC) becomes more important to the company's overall strategy.  Most organizations face challenges such as:

• Reduced lead-times
• Smaller shipment sizes
• More frequent orders/deliveries
• JIT delivery schedules
• Compliance labeling
• SKU proliferation
• Increased quality inspection requirements
• Near perfect inventory accuracy
• Space limitations

While workloads continue to increase, management stresses the importance of controlling and even reducing costs.

Understand Function

Whether designing a new warehouse/DC or revamping an existing operation, it is critical to understand what functions the warehouse/DC will perform:

• Does the operation handle non-standard product and/or product configurations?
• Will the operation perform cross-docking, flow thru, or other inventory strategies?
• How will product demand patterns be handled (fast movers versus slow movers, seasonality, etc.)
• What value-added services will the operation perform (returns management, kitting, value-added labeling, etc.)?
• Can the existing software and/or equipment handle the new design?

The answers to these and other questions will greatly impact the design/redesign and cost/cost reduction of the operation