Space, time, and money. These can be interchangeable in your warehouse. Or, if not strictly interchangeable, they at a minimum work in tandem. When you save space, you save money. Similarly, when you save time, you also save money. But, in a warehouse, space is the leader of this trio. When you save space, you save time, and when you save time, you save money. To conserve all three in your warehouse, you need efficient organization of your space in all three dimensions. The horizontal space can be divided by partitions, and the vertical space can be divided by shelves. There are many ways to divide the floor into categories or departments. wire partitions can be excellent dividers. The choices for shelving are more open ended. To illustrate the variety of shelving options, a single example would be cantilever racking.

But how does efficient use of space save time? You turn space into time by making your warehouse goods easily seen, so that the warehouse workers don’t waste time looking for inventory items. The first step in this process is to arrange the warehouse contents into groups or categories and to apply an efficient labeling system, most usually based on barcode labels that can be read from a distance. The next step is to arrange the warehouse space according to these categories. With this organization scheme, the sought-after items can be located before they are retrieved.

The second way that efficient use of space saves time is to shorten the distances that a warehouse worker must travel in order to locate and transport the inventory items to and from the shipping area. Here is where the vertical space becomes important. Picture a one-story, low-ceiling warehouse. The floor area of this warehouse would have to be equal to the sum of the footprints of all of the stored items, plus the aisle space needed to access every item. The warehouse workers would have to travel unnecessary distances along the floor to place or retrieve the items. In contrast, consider a high-ceiling warehouse space. Tall shelving units would allow for stacking the goods in multiple layers, reducing the amount of aisle space that the workers would have to travel in order to access the desired goods. Forklifts or other such lifting devices allow easy access to goods at higher levels.

So now we can consider how a reduction in time becomes money savings. This saving is obvious. Warehouse workers earn wages for their time. This is where time and money come together. The more inventory that inventory specialists can move within a given time period, the less it costs to store the goods.

Thus, it becomes even more obvious that easily locatable items and shorter paths through the aisles are worth the investment of time and money.