Every company with a supply chain employs some form a warehouse. These warehouses are generally owned by the company, operated by a third-party, or are a public warehouse. As a result, choosing the right public warehouse ensures that the amount of supply chain interruptions are minimized. The following five factors are important factors to consider when looking for a public warehouse to store your companies’ products.

Global Warehousing in a Nutshell

Types of Warehousing Space

• Commercial: in rented building used for business.
• Government or state: such as at the ports or harbors. This is common in emergency situations.
• Transit: for temporary storage of goods destined for different locations and need storage for a very short time.
• Bonded warehouses: for storage of goods whose duty is unpaid and especially where the goods are destined to another country. Pre-positioned stock is often held in bonded warehouses so that export is quick and can sometimes be stored for long periods.
• Open storage: not ideal for perishable products but in emergencies, sometimes the only alternative.
• Space that is owned and managed by the organisation.
• Pre-fabricated warehouses where there are no permanent structures available. This is common practice in emergencies.

Basic Principles of Warehouse and Inventory Management

• Planning inbound receipt procedures.
• Storage formalities e.g:
  • location management
  • inventory control
  • occupational health and safety
• Outbound delivery procedures.

How to Select and Set-Up a Warehouse

In determining needs, one should look beyond the basic need of a warehouse to store things. Whilst, this is correct there are also other considerations.

• the volume of goods;
• speed of through-put required;
• as a transit point;
• breaking bulk location;
• an area for sorting and consolidating different goods;
• to enhance the speed of the response;
• to protect and account for inventor; and
• as a buffer in the event of a break-down or delay in the supply pipeline.

There are many factors to consider when deciding on warehouse location. Global Warehousing is a fairly new method whereby many companies use to be able to control inventory flow.

Running a business is often unpredictable, and when situations arise, you may need to access the public warehouse on short notice. Look for a warehouse that is flexible and allows rapid access to the facility should you have an urgent need.

Depending on the short or long-term needs of your company, using a public warehouse is a great option for storing your products. 

Finally, Global warehousing is a function managed by many 3PL Providers who offer an array of logistics services . Consequently reaching out to 4PL Logistics companies would be a good idea as you can count on their expertise and access to valuable information.

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