If you’re struggling with floor space (for example, if you stock a lot of heavy goods or materials), the L-shape could help you out. It’s also a problem-solver for warehouses that experience frequent traffic backups due to unusual workflows or travel paths that send workers doubling back often.
That said, watch out for dead space. The right angle can create some awkward zoning challenges that lead to navigational problems, which is a major drawback for warehouses that are already struggling to fight congestion.
How do you know which warehouse shape is right for you? The answer is both difficult and simple: You need to ask yourself what you need out of that space.
And that means mapping out your workflows.

GO WITH THE WORKFLOW: THINKING ABOUT ZONES, AREAS, AND FLOW PATHS
In the warehouse world, optimizing your workflows means planning out clean, quick, uninterrupted flow paths for your goods to travel between each designated service area. Every order your company processes needs to move from storage to picking, then from packing to shipping, and finally to your customer’s door. And that’s just the outbound orders. You’ll also need to consider the inbound orders running on the reverse track.
It’s a lot to think about. And a lot to plan. But no surprise there, because your warehouse team needs to live with these decisions—and make them work—every single day.

First of all, you’ll need to decide on the fundamental elements of your warehouse layout and designate them to specific areas. Elements and areas like…

• Inbound Receiving Area/Dock: It’s not much of a warehouse if there’s nowhere for your trucks to unload, your inspectors to work, and your receipts to be processed. No need to make things complicated here; the best place for the receiving area is almost always near the entrance.
• Storage & Inventory Area: The target here is to create a storage area that is roomy enough to contain your goods and allow workers to traverse it easily, but you’ll also need to keep things organized. This choice depends heavily upon what type of products you sell, but there are a few best-practice principles to help almost any business. We recommend organizing storage zones by inventory types, demand patterns, and picking frequencies. Put your high-demand items in easily accessible locations for a better work day. You’ll cut down on travel time and save energy for your picking team. Basic logic, but sometimes that’s the best kind.
• Packing (Plus Picking) Area: Set aside enough space for packing, please! But don’t forget to think about your picking step here, since you’ll need to coordinate it with your packing area. Some nifty tactics to reduce travel distances and annoying slowdowns include grouping similar items together (see above), making use of batch picking and/or zone picking strategies, and hand-tailoring your paths for an easy, breezy order fulfillment process.
• Outbound Shipping Area/Dock: This is where outbound goods will be sent to process for shipping. For a seamless experience, from packing to departure, try to place this area close to your packing step and your shipping docks. You’d be surprised at what a difference this can make for your typical order fulfillment time, and your customers will thank you.
• Service & Employee Areas: Your employees need special areas, too, ideally designated to meet their specific needs. Consider the type of operation you’re running and what functions your workers perform on their day to day. Group any unmet service, employee, and miscellaneous functions into types and assign enough space for each. Of course, don’t forget to build in space for human needs during this step, like safe rest and eating areas.

SPACE CASE: THE ART OF PLANNING YOUR EQUIPMENT TO FIT A LOT INTO A LITTLE

Our favorite warehouses sometimes feel a little like clown cars. There’s a lot more squirreled away in there than should be humanly possible—and yet it works.
(As long as you’re bending the laws of physics safely, of course. We’re organization fiends at Goods, but nothing’s worth risking your team getting hurt.)
All this to say that space utilization is a major part of designing your warehouse layout. You’ll need to max out your storage capacity while making sure your team can move easily around the warehouse, stay healthy, and access all the items they need.

As you start sketching out your organization master plan, remember a few important components of layout ease:

• Think About Dimensions: Your first step really ought to be recording the exact dimensions of the available space you’re working with. So get your boots on the ground, get those measurements, and diagram the total work and total storage area. Then and only then will you be able to accurately map out which areas should serve which purposes—and how to configure them in a cost-effective way.
• The Basic B: Boxes and Bins: Don’t knock the old tried-and-true solutions. No matter how modern your warehouse is, you’ll inevitably find yourself organizing goods into boxes and bins. When you’re planning these storage layouts, follow the rules of grouping, and try to group like boxes together.

Bins, on the other hand, offer a fast and easy way to make high-demand small items immediately accessible to your picking team, no matter how wild things get on the floor.

• Shelf Stability: Allow us to save you from a warehouse newbie disaster. All shelves are not created equal. You’ll need to consider which type of shelf is appropriate for your needs and the products you stock. There are two main choices here:
  • HD Shelving (Heavy Duty): HD shelving is built to withstand mighty loads. Typically made of heavy-gauge, reinforced steel, they can shoulder thousands of pounds. Safer, stronger—and, naturally, more expensive.
  • LD Shelving (Light Duty): LD shelving supports lighter items, usually between 150 to 350 pounds. It’s a sound option if you handle these limited loads, since the lightweight construction materials (like medium-density fiberboard) will save you a considerable chunk of cash.
• Rack Configuration: You’ve seen the thousands of different spice racks out there, so you already understand the difference that smart use of vertical space can make. Always choose the right racking systems to wring the most value out of your space at every angle, because storing items densely means your team can see and access much more without running around the warehouse.

If you’re feeling lost with rack options, do we ever have some good news for you. The Goods team racked our brains about rack solutions and distilled this primer for you:

• Selective Racking: This is often the best choice for warehouses dealing with a wide range of SKUs involving various sizes and turnover rates. Selective racking makes it easy for your team to pick fast-moving goods by providing direct access to each pallet or item. It’s also flexible enough to handle different SKUs in the same system, which can save you precious space and replenishment task time.
• Double-Deep Racking: Storing pallets two-deep will get you more storage bang for your buck. It cuts down on aisle space and increases storage density by going vertical. If you’re struggling with high-volume storage needs for the same SKU and/or if restocking is a constant pain in your behind, double-deep could be your magic bullet.
• Push-Back Racking: Harness the power of gravity to feel like a supervillain and to optimize your warehouse storage space. What supervillain doesn’t put a premium on a well-run warehouse?

In all seriousness, push-back racking works by using gravity to push back “old” pallets every time new pallets are loaded. Practically, this translates to a lower aisle requirement and faster picking as well as replenishment. It’s ideal for warehouses running on LIFO (Last In, First Out) rotation, which reduces the risk of your products expiring or falling into obsolescence.

• Slotting Optimization: The “cram things wherever they fit” method is a great way to make a mess of your closet. The same concept applies to your warehouse. It’s usually helpful to slot items based on demand, size, and turnover rates, which will in turn minimize wasted space and make life easier for your pickers. You might consider using ABC analysis to classify your inventory. Grouping small items together is also a tried-and-true storage tip winner.
• Aisle Width Determination: Given the option, it’s better to build your warehouse around the equipment you need—not the other way around. Think about the vehicles and physical tools you need to run your operations (forklifts, pallet jacks, and so on). Their size will then help you figure out the ideal width of your aisles.

Balance is the magic word here. Too wide, and your aisles won’t hold as many racks as they should. Too narrow, and you’ll create traffic jams and dangerous situations.

• Vertical Storage Hacks: Thinking vertically isn’t just for item placement, but for the whole building. Try including mezzanine levels, high-density shelving, and vertical lifts into your warehouse design. You’ll increase your storage capacity exponentially without cranking up your warehouse footprint, which is a lifesaver in a tiny space.
  • Mezzanine Levels Tip: Mezzanine levels are perfect for accommodating lightweight inventory items and equipment. It’s also a useful place to plop your admin spaces, conference rooms, offices, break areas, secret lairs, and so on. You’ll make more space on the ground floor for bulky items, vehicles, and your most in-demand products.
  • High-Density Racking Tip: Adjustable pallet racking can work magic on tight storage situations, since you’ll be able to customize your space based on the actual size and volume of your items. Narrow-aisle racking strategies can multiply your storage capacity while saving just enough space for the forklift to shimmy on through.
  • Vertical Lifts Tip: Automated vertical lifts or carousels are excellent ways to store small parts, lightweight tools, and tiny inventory items. Your team can access these items speedily, plus you’ll shrink your storage footprint. In our view, automation trumps manually rooting through items (almost) every time, so it’s worth integrating your lifts with your WMS to reap the benefits of real-time tracking.

Sometimes landing on the perfect warehouse layout takes some fiddling and experimentation, but you’ll know when you’re getting warmer. Your team will work faster, you’ll fit more goods, and you’ll chip away at costly storage bills and inventory errors.

BE ONE OF THE GOOD GUYS: PUT YOUR TEAM’S HEALTH FIRST

On one hand, we hate to sound like your parents after you just took an unsupervised spill on your bike. But on the other hand? Maybe Mom and Dad were right. When a bad decision makes a team unsafe because of negligence or corner-cutting, no excuse will fly. At best, you risk serious property damage and financial losses. At worst?
No cool storage solution or bill shrinkage is worth recklessly playing around with people’s limbs and lives.
So keep your team healthy by checking in often and considering the below:

• Clear Aisles and Walkways: As long as we’re channeling Mom and Dad, be a good kid and clean your warehouse. Keep aisles clear and free of debris, obstructions, and other hazards, and please do provide some designated pedestrian paths. Proper signage and floor markings will keep everyone on the same page regardless of seniority. When your team can move around without worrying that they’re about to faceplant, break an ankle, or crash into a rogue forklift, your warehouse will run faster. And workplace-related freak-outs will go way, way down.
  
• Zoned Areas: You’ll cut down on traffic and danger in one swoop when you assign separate zones to different activities (e.g., loading/unloading, picking, packing). Barriers and safety gates between these zones can help avoid accidents too.
  
• Ergonomic Workstations: Warehouse Mom is back to remind you that preventative care is an important part of safety. Nothing lets your warehouse workers know you appreciate them like caring about their health before they’re dealing with an injury. To get you started, try some of these ideas on for size: ergonomic workstations, comfortable rest areas, adjustable work surfaces, and protective gear.

And hook your team up with good lighting, Christopher Nolan—we’re not shooting an edgy crime drama in your warehouse.

• Safety Equipment and Training: The great thing about workplace safety is that you don’t have to figure it out on your own. Stick with safety standards by making use of barriers, guardrails, fire alarms and suppression systems, emergency situation drills, and strategically placed exits.

It’s not enough to slap some extra doors on your warehouse and call it a day, though. You also need to know how to use your safety arsenal. Which means you, too, should engage your Warehouse Mom Mode and make sure every member of your team is safety-trained. And don’t skimp out on offering frequent refresher courses in subjects like warehouse equipment operation, how to recognize dangerous situations before they explode, and what to do in case of a disaster.

TAKE A SHORTCUT: THERE IS NO “SCENIC ROUTE” IN A WAREHOUSE

The middle of your busy warehouse is no place to stop and smell the begonias. Be respectful of your team’s time by remembering that they’re not here to hang out in the storage racks.
The best way to help your workers get from nine o’clock to five o’clock is to cut down on time-sucking annoyances that create extra tasks. In a warehouse, a large chunk of those annoyances can be zapped by addressing these areas of concern:

• Sensible Layout Choices: You’ve read this far, so you know the importance of using common sense, research, and team feedback to design your warehouse floorplan. Need a recap? Some of those decisions will include: where to place storage areas, which paths your pickers will take, where to apply directional signage, and how to position workstations.

You’ll also want to take a look at your storage setup (racks or otherwise) and make adjustments for good visibility, high levels of accessibility, and maximum space utilization. Throw a dash of flexibility into the mix—say, by using rack types that are easy to adjust on the fly in case you adjust your safety stock levels—and you’re off to the races.
The idea here is to save your team time and energy by helping them get from Point A to Point B with fewer steps, fewer distractions, and—frankly—less random nonsense to interrupt their flow.

• Inventory Accuracy: You hate errors, we hate errors, customers hate errors, and pretty much everyone in the warehouse hates errors. So you know what you have to do: take action to cut down on mistakes by improving the accuracy of your inventory system.

A few inventory management tricks to optimize your picking equipment, plump up your tech stack, and get you started on the right foot?

• Order Fulfillment: Batch picking, wave picking, and automated sorting systems streamline order fulfillment by upping throughput and slashing order cycle times. This harkens back to our notes about choosing sound pick routes and optimizing batch size. And please don’t handle this all manually if you don’t have to; there are plenty of tech solutions out there to automate order processing, tracking, the whole nine yards.
• Work-Area Equipment: You’ve got your rack situation sorted by picking the right equipment to meet your storage needs. What about your working needs? You’ll need to familiarize yourself with the everyday labor actions taken on your warehouse floor in order to choose the appropriate equipment. Here are some suggestions to get your gears turning:
  • Multi-use tables and workbenches to cover a wide variety of tasks (ask your workers what they need)
  • Specialty manufacturing assembly stations (for items that need a unique process or special touch)
  • Dedicated packing stations for unique, high-priority, or high-volume products
  • Dedicated shipping station table (or an alternative surface/zone that meets the specific needs of your team and products)
  • Pallet picking freight scale station (a zone especially for palletized goods to be picked, weighed, and prepared to head to shipping)
• Material Handling Equipment: You take care of your staff and your products, so take care of your tools too. The vehicles and large implements that keep your warehouse running are some of the most important pieces in your toolbox, even if they don’t stand a chance of fitting inside an actual toolbox. That includes equipment like:
  • Stock cards and pallet jacks
  • Rolling staircases
  • Conveyors
  • Forklifts

Remember to factor in additional robotics equipment you might rely on, like robotic arms, drones, etc

• Training and Engagement: Training and refresher classes are like working out. If your new, you’ll discover your challenges and see the need to adapt your tactics immediately. If you’re an old pro, you’ll see results and learn more about your routine with time. Whichever situation describes your warehouse team, there’s no getting out of regular training. It may induce groans from your veterans, but it will keep your workflows current, your equipment in tip-top shape, and everyone on the same operational groove. What’s more, training sessions double as a convenient opportunity to hear from the teams of workers who have the most experience in the day-to-day grind of your business. Don’t tune out their feedback; honoring experience and true know-how will boost morale and efficiency.
• Test, Test, Test! Before you fire up your new and improved warehouse layout, always test your flow plans. Run drills with your team, time processing steps, find chokepoints and weak spots, and work together to fix any problems before you do it for real. This step is, of course, to ensure that you implement an efficient flow strategy that works from minute one. And that sustained level of operational certainty is worth putting yourself through any number of annoying tests.

THE SKINNY ON LEAN WAREHOUSE PRINCIPLES
The next time someone gives you grief about going on a diet, put your warehouse on one instead.
“Lean” practices in warehousing refer to strategies that prioritize efficiency, trim excess waste, and create a mindset of continuous improvement. (A far better option than avoiding ice cream.)
By adopting lean practices, you’ll tighten your processes, your costs, and your turnaround time. That’s easy to say and harder to do, so here are some guidelines to help you along the way:
Waste Reduction
Junk has a way of piling up in secret. Sometimes it’s hard to notice a problem until you’re swimming in waste—wasted items, wasted time, and wasted space.
In a warehouse, “junk” usually takes the form of excess inventory, overproduction, lengthy travel times, long waiting periods, maddening delays, and defective items. Tackle these problems with the lean mindset to toss the waste and luxuriate in a clean, orderly warehouse.

• Excess Inventory: Nobody likes yesterday’s junk crowding out today’s business. Running audits of your inventory will help you find and jettison obsolete or unpopular items. Just-in-Time (JIT) inventory management strategies are sure to shave down on excessive stock. And please, please, don’t leave inventory management up to guesswork if you want to cut down on waste; bite the bullet and invest in demand forecasting tools.
• Overproduction: You can’t say “demand forecasting” without summoning a member of the Goods team to stress the importance of aligning production with verifiable, numerically supported demand. That said, you’re not locked into demand forecasting tools alone. There’s also the option of using pull-based systems, where production is based on real customer orders rather than forecasts. Whichever you choose, fine-tuning your batch sizes is also a wise move.
• Unnecessary Movement: If your pickers are taking a hundred steps to navigate the obstacle course of your warehouse when they could be taking fifteen, then you, my friend, have a layout problem. Aim to keep travel distances (including pick routes) as short as possible, which will protect your team from aching feet and speed up your operation. If your warehouse staff is complaining of exhaustion due to long distances or repetitive physical tasks, it’s past time to explore supplementing their work with automation and robotics.
• Waiting Times: Long waiting times have a way of trickling right down to the customer’s doorstep. Find and bust your bottlenecks by reviewing schedules, and consult your team experts about balancing workloads to avoid gaps and idle time.
• Defects: Pobody’s nerfect, which means errors are an inevitable part of work life. That’s not a permission slip to throw up our hands and leave defects to fate, however. Concrete quality control measures can reduce errors and defects throughout your operation, not just in the production stage but during picking, packing, and shipping. Strong SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) refreshed by frequent training sessions will keep your team at the top of their game. Finally, tech solutions like barcode scanning and verification systems can nip otherwise unavoidable errors in the bud.

Continuous Improvement
Living lean isn’t just about fixing what you’re doing wrong. At the core of the lean philosophy is a culture that values learning, innovation, and collaborative improvement.
Below, you’ll find some actionable steps you can take to start fostering a lean culture at your business in the warehouse and beyond.

• Continuous Incremental Improvements (Kaizen in Japanese business philosophy): No one should be expected to transform their entire being or way of life overnight. But you can support your employees at every level by encouraging them to find small ways to improve daily life at your business, both personally and for their coworkers. At Goods, we’re fans of regular Kaizen workshops that tackle specific areas of improvement. It’s a great way to celebrate our team achievements and big ideas too.
• Value Stream Mapping: Sitting down to map the entire value stream of your warehouse processes—from receiving to shipping—is one of the most straightforward and useful measures you can take to identify waste. This often uncovers other weaknesses that can be patched up or even eliminated after a little cross-functional elbow grease, courtesy of your warehouse team.
• Root Cause Analysis: Slapping a bucket under a leaky pipe will contain the drip, but it won’t fix the root problem: your plumbing is in disrepair. As you apply different tricks to respond to errors, make sure to investigate their causes too. Fishbone diagrams, the 5 Whys Technique, and Pareto charts are some of our favorite analytical tools to root out underlying issues. Because you can’t replace that bad pipe until you find it.
• Gemba Walks: If something is rotten in your warehouse, you’d better get out there to smell it yourself. Gemba walks describe the simple action of visiting your workplace to talk to frontline staff, check out the day-to-day operations, and witness problem areas yourself.

Lean philosophy and the tenants of continuous improvement can and should reach beyond your warehouse. Embracing just a few of these principles can massively reduce waste, improve workplace contentment, and discover ways to ramp up productivity—all of which make customers smile.

THE 5S METHOD: SORT, SET, SHINE, STANDARDIZE, SUSTAIN
GADGETS, NOT GLITCHES: WAREHOUSE TECH THAT WORKS
We have very strong tech opinions at Goods. One of our most dearly held beliefs is that practical tech solutions shouldn’t scare you with their complexity—they should excite you by delivering simplicity.
That’s why we’ve assembled a shortlist of popular tech tools that focus on making your warehouse life more accurate and more efficient… but much less confusing.

• Warehouse Management Systems (WMS)
  Ah, WMS—or Warehouse Management Systems, if you’d like to call this class of software by its full name. They manage and automate your most basic warehouse needs, like inventory management, order processing, picking, packing, and shipping. At a glance, here are a few especially useful powers of a solid WMS:
  • Real-time Visibility: Any WMS worth its weight will provide real-time visibility into your warehouse, including immediate insight into your inventory levels and item locations. This is the to-the-minute intel your staff needs to make better decisions, move quickly, and control stock.
  • Improved Order Accuracy: Automating your order process and the pick-and-pack stage is sure to reduce errors. In the shortest possible terms, fewer mishaps equals more glowing reviews.
  • Optimized Operations: One of the most impactful benefits of a WMS is its ability to improve the health of your entire operation by managing workflows and task assignment, as well as optimizing storage locations.
  • Barcode Scanning and RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification) Tracking

These two types of systems work for your warehouse by automating data capture, evading errors caused by manual input problems, and sprucing up inventory tracking. Here’s how:

• Data Accuracy: Humans, we love you, but when it comes to data accuracy, scanning beats the stuffing out of eyeballing. Barcode scanning and RFID tracking remove the need for manual data entry, which will cut down on delays, mistakes, and killer headaches.
• Inventory Visibility: These technologies provide instant visibility into inventory levels, locations, and movements, facilitating efficient inventory management and replenishment.
• Efficient Tracking: Barcode scanning and RFID tracking enhance order fulfillment by swiftly locating items, dodging picking and shipping errors.
• Automated Material Handling Systems

Automated material handling systems can really beef up a flimsy warehouse. Conveyor belts, automated guided vehicles (AGVs), and robotic picking systems are just a few of the options that can ease the workload on small teams and get larger teams moving at the speed of sound. Let us count the ways they help:

• Efficiency: Automated material handling systems ease the burdens placed on staff by automating repetitive tasks. This in turn can reduce labor needs, lower costs, and increase throughput.
• Accuracy: Fewer errors throughout your warehouse, especially in the shipping and pick-and-pack processes, leads to lightning-fast delivery and gleeful customers.
• Speed: Automated systems are faster than manual ones, cutting down cycle times and cranking up fulfillment speed. Like we said… love ya, humanity, but doing it old-school means eating automation’s dust.
• Safety: For all that automation embarrasses us in the speed arena, it also saves us when it comes to safety. Automated material handling systems keep warehouse teams safer because they relieve us of the burden of handling heavy, dangerous items by hand. Better to break a fancy toy than a leg bone, after all.

CONCLUSION—AND A CALL TO ACTION
If you were waiting on a sign to whip your warehouse into shape: Hello, you. This is it. Your unignorable sign from the warehouse cosmos.
The time has come to optimize your warehouse plan.
Levity is our lifeblood at Goods, but in truth, this is no laughing matter. A poorly laid out warehouse simply can’t keep pace with storage, order fulfillment, or production needs.
By picking the right methods, principles, and tools to improve your warehouse floorplan and design, you’ll see efficiency, velocity, safety, and productivity surge—all while stamping out errors and bloated costs.
The Goods team is always ready to support you as you ditch the junk, dial up the speed, and boost your warehouse operation to the next level.