Warehouse contractors are professional construction companies that specialize in creating warehouses. With their help, you can design an efficient warehouse that saves both money and space over time.
Building a warehouse involves several steps, beginning with getting an estimate for the project based on its complexity. Once this step has been taken, construction can begin.
Site Design
Warehouse sites are specifically designed to facilitate efficient material flow, starting from trailer parking, loading, and storage space. A warehouse building should also take into account dimensions like car/truck parking spaces, docks, offices spaces, bay sizing requirements for different material handling equipment types expected during its design.
Additionally, warehouse contractor should select an appropriate flooring type for a distribution center. Concrete flooring typically is the go-to choice since its hardy nature can withstand wheel loads from steel- and rubber-wheeled forklift trucks, and be sealed or coated to protect against wear and tear.
Finally, warehouse contractors should carefully examine their surrounding site to ensure construction can proceed without undue interference from existing facilities and avoid potential groundwater or flooding issues. It would also be advisable to install energy-efficient fixtures, windows, systems and appliances whenever possible as this will help decrease energy costs and carbon emissions at your facility.
Racking Layouts & Standards
The warehouse racking system selection is one of the most significant elements in designing any facility. This choice affects how materials are stored and accessed, which impacts inventory turnover speeds as well as how efficiently a shipping zone runs.
A reliable warehouse contractor is capable of suggesting the ideal storage and racking solution for your unique business needs, such as selecting rack systems that provide easy access to pallets individually and are suitable for facilities with high ceilings.
Warehouse construction experts understand industry standards regarding bay sizes and aisle widths for different material handling equipment, such as order pickers requiring narrower aisles than counterbalance forklifts.
Material Handling Equipment
As part of your production process, moving items across warehouse floors or between storage areas may require material handling equipment like conveyor systems, racks, shelving units and stacking frames - keeping items accessible while reducing effort required to transport them.
Transport equipment, positioning equipment, unit load formation equipment and storage and handling equipment are the four major categories of material handling equipment. Transport equipment allows bulky items to be moved easily between locations such as between buildings or between warehouses and customers, using transport trucks or shuttle vans as necessary. Cranes or industrial trucks used as positioning equipment move large items while unit load formation equipment packs materials into individual unit loads that can then be easily loaded onto transportation vehicles for transport.
Storage and handling equipment includes dolly-type trucks and carts to make moving items around easier in warehouse environments, mezzanines, storage racks and bins to organize smaller products quickly in inventory management, mezzanines to provide additional workspace, mezzanines and bins for more efficient organization of smaller products as well as bins that enable faster inventory tracking.
Safety & Security
Implementing these safety measures when building or operating a warehouse will help keep its operations running smoothly and ensure their continued success.
Protect the perimeter with physical barriers like crashproof gates and state-of-the-art security systems that update automatically to reduce break-ins. Designate spaces for receiving and dispatching services as well as separate entrances for truck loading in order to minimize thefts or accidents.
Use access control technology to allow or deny employees entry to areas within your facility depending on clearance levels, making it easier for management to detect problems quickly when they arise.
Install security patrols and cages/vaults at your warehouse to detect and deter thieves from stealing merchandise from there. Furthermore, this will reduce inventory shrinkage while making it harder for criminals to access high-value inventory.
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