Warehousing and Storage (1)

Storage. The storage of goods is the primary function of warehousing. Warehouses temporarily house manufactured, ready-to-sell items or work-in-progress (WIP) items (partially complete goods requiring further manufacturing downstream in the supply chain). Warehouses can store a manufacturer’s goods while they await sale, or be operated by a buyer to store goods bought from various manufacturers for later sale through a retail point or delivery to a customer. In the case of the latter, the warehouse could be physically attached to the retail point, Ikea-style (e.g. a stockroom or warehouse floor on top or beneath a retail area). The warehouse allows space to be used for the safe and accessible storage of inventory. In the retail scenario, some stock is immediately present for customer selection and takeaway, but additional stock is stored in the warehouse and accessed when replenishment of an item is required.

Effective – i.e. revenue protective – storage requires the facility to preserve goods in a perfectly saleable state. Thus, the protection of goods is a secondary function of the warehouse.

Grading and packing. “Grading” is the often manually intensive process of sorting goods based on specified characteristics, such as size, shape, type, and quality. This, not quality assurance, is grading. Amazon, for example, sort their goods by size, grouping similar size objects together in designated bins and using algorithms to present the optimum packaging configuration to the operative.

Value-Addition Through Service Diversification

To keep pace with the general elevation of customer expectation regarding purchase ease and delivery, warehouses are providing increasingly varied product-related services, including, packaging options, personalisation options, and bundling. Goods may also be packed for onward shipping at the warehouse (ahead of dispatch, usually). Packaging/packing conditions can be stipulated by the manufacturer, importer, or even customer. also provide customers with grading and packing services. Goods are often packed according to the manufacturer’s or importer’s requirements. The provision of value-adding services is increasingly common in the activity repertoire of the modern warehouse.