My Favorite Sale: Order Out of Chaos

Planning, preparation help warehouse1 work from square 1.

My favorite sale showed me that sometimes, the best solutions require starting from scratch. It allowed me to create a more efficient solution from the ground up for our client, a St. Louis-are distributor of automotive fluids, who sought a more orderly solution for their nearly 700,000 sq. ft. warehouse.

The racks were from a variety of suppliers and did not effectively utilize the space. The customer needed a more efficient solution and contacted us at warehouse1 (Kansas City, MO). Despite the challenge it presented due to scale, the job went surprisingly smoothly.

I began the job by examining all the existing rack, doing a bay-by-bay count and mapping out the entire warehouse, a job which I completed over the course of three day-long visits. We have an extensive used-rack business at warehouse1, so we bought all of the old product from the customer and removed it from the site. I was then able to do the proposed design in AutoCAD.

The new design utilized Monarch teardrop selective roll-form racks that better fit the customer’s needs regarding aisle sizes, height utilization and cube height. The standardization proved to be a much cleaner solution than the previous collection of mismatched racks. We went in and revamped their whole warehouse and made it a lot cleaner and more efficient. The installation was completed in two phases over the course of approximately six months.

While the project was a success for the customer and warehouse1, it provided me with valuable insight for future installations- mainly, be prepared. Have things lined out ahead of time so there are no surprises when it’s time to start. I took a lot of satisfaction away from the job because the end product ended up helping out the customer significantly.

Meet the Author Scott Harleman, 34, is a sales representative for warehouse1 (Kansas City, MO). He is an 8-year veteran of the material handling industry.