Warehousing

Definition

A warehouse can be defined as “a planned space for efficient accommodation and handling of goods and materials”.

It is a planned space for efficient accommodation and handling of goods and materials. Both the physical processes of material handling and stocking as well as the underlying methodologies are commonly denoted by the word warehousing.

According to Roos warehousing may be defined as, “the segment of an enterprise’s logistics function that is responsible for handling and storage of inventories. Management of these processes includes the maintenance of accurate and timely information relating to the status location, condition and disbursement of inventory.”

We need warehouses;

1. Top provide adequate buffer storage against inequalities caused by unpredictable variations in supply and demand.
2. To safeguard stock from damage, deterioration and unauthorized removal by providing an environment which is an appropriate area to the material being stored.
3. To record accurately receipts stock holding and dispatches and to provide an efficient communicational interface with all appropriate parts of the system that are being served

Functions

According to Lamber and Stock, there are four functions

1. Material handling

• Receiving refers to physical order acceptance. This includes activities which lead to inflow of materials into the warehouse like unloading of the order audit.
• Storing deals with putting away received inventory in such a manner that it complements the order picking activity.
• Shipping deals with the performing task relating to dispatching of an order.
• Order picking refers to physical selection of products from their location on receipt of customer order. Orders are picked with the help of a document called pick list. This document contains sales order number, required shipment date, item details, quantity details, product code.
• Sorting.
• Traffic management analyze the carriers suitable for a product shipment so as to increase customer satisfaction but decrease total transportation cost.

2. Storage
   • Stock piling refers to the storing of products and materials so as to allow a company to exploit economies in production and transportation.
   • Product rotation ensures that proper value addition takes place in products but at the same time there is minimum loss from obsolescence and spoilage.
   • Consolidation and breaking of bulk means a manufacturer converts many small shipments into full carloads and then ships them to a local or a regional consolidation centres. At these centres the bulk is broken down according to order specification of individual distributors and this activity is called bulk breaking function.

3. Information transfer – in a warehouse, irrespective of how small or large an activity is, details are maintained in a record by activities of book keeping and stock taking and control. These records are later used to calculate space utilization, equipment and manpower availability, throughput time, order picking time and efficiency of various other activities.

4. Customer service – it is considered as the measure of how well the logistics system is performing in creating time and space utility for products including post sales support. It is also seen as related to aspects of inventory management and storage, including acquisition of raw materials, coordination of WIP inventory and delivery of FG inventory.