Tips for Maximizing Your Warehouse Capacity

Determining warehouse capacity accurately is considered one of the very important topics in warehouse management because of the decisions that determine the strategies and methods of work of the entire institution, and there are a number of factors that will affect determining warehouse capacity, which you must take into consideration while determining capacity, and in this article we will present You have all the details related to the process of determining warehouse capacity, as well as how to improve and increase it.

What is warehouse capacity?

What is meant by warehouse capacity is the space available for storage, in which stock can be prepared and orders placed.

It is the available space, which is determined according to a number of factors, as:

• Dimensions and weights of the products to be stored in this warehouse.
• The volume of inventory the company needs to meet the special demands of its customers.
• The space your employees need to efficiently carry out customer orders and locate items to fulfill orders.

Warehouse space utilization versus storage utilization

Many confuse Warehouse space utilization with storage utilization, and in general Warehouse space utilization refers to how efficiently a company uses its warehouse,

And storage utilization refers to how efficient the use of space is in storage, and you can get it by multiplying the area of Warehouse space utilization by the net height for warehouse.

What makes warehouse capacity important?

Determining warehouse capacity is very important, due to its prominent role in logistics management,

And it also has a major role in improving the storage and management of your inventory, and thus better growth of your business.

Also, through warehouse capacity, you will be able to know the amount of inventory that you can accommodate, thus reducing the risk of out of stock as well as backorders.

Many believe that they always need to have the largest possible space, and this is not true at all,

As the greater the warehouse space, the higher the costs of storage and inventory control tasks.

Therefore, always make sure, when determining your warehouse capacity, that you choose a space that:

• Suits the size of your business
• Helps you in the rapid and efficient execution of orders.

How to calculate warehouse capacity

In order to improve your warehouse capacity, you first need to determine the actual capacity of your warehouse.

Here are the steps you need to calculate warehouse capacity:

1. Specify the square feet measurements for your warehouse.
2. Calculate the total area that you use for non-storage purposes, such as bathrooms, rest rooms, and so on…
3. Subtract the non-storage space from your total warehouse space, to get the available space for use in your warehouse, and you can rely on this formula to calculate it:
4. Area available for use = Total Sq. Ft. Non – Storage Space Sq. Ft.
5. Specify the exact amount of storage space available for use, as the visible maximum height of the warehouse.
6. Multiply the maximum apparent height of the warehouse by the total area available for use in your warehouse, to get the storage capacity in cubic feet, and you can rely on the following formula in the calculation:
7. Storage capacity = usable space in square feet. Foot. ×Maximum visible height in feet.

Optimizing warehouse capacity

Now that we know how to determine warehouse capacity, you can now think about how to improve warehouse capacity, and digital warehouse tools can help you optimize Warehouse Layout capacity efficiently.

Digital warehouse tools also help you effectively optimize your e-commerce warehouse operations.

Warehouse management systems (WMS) help you improve warehouse capacity by:

• Tracking real-time inventory.
• Keeping track of your inventory flows.
• Helping you identify your inefficiencies
• Improving your operations.

Warehouse KPIs also play an important role in improving warehouse capacity by determining the efficiency of your employees in the operations of storing your stock in the warehouse and other useful functions.

Increasing current warehouse capacity

Many are looking for a suitable way to increase their capacity, which will help them in achieving future growth.

In order to increase current capacity, you need to determine your future demand by forecasting your future inventory needs.

So you’ll need to reconsider your current warehouse setup, and there are a number of things you should check first before considering increasing current capacity:

• Make the most of your existing warehouse space.
• How double shelves can be used for storage to increase space.
• Possibility to make some adjustments in the scroll view to save more space.
• The possibility of charging and receiving docks, thus saving more space.
• The extent to which the maximum benefit from warehouse automation is achieved.