Increase Capacity and Operational Efficiency with Warehouse Optimization

Toilet paper and hand sanitizer shortages? Who would ever think?

COVID-19 exposed the fragility of the just-in-time supply chains. We’ve all lived through supply chain disruptions this year, when there isn’t enough of the right product—or the right workers—on hand when you need it.

So, what’s the solution?

“Look up and Automate” with warehouse optimization. After all, you pay for the square footage of your warehouse, not the cubic footage. MHS Lift thinks “inside the box” – meaning your warehouse – and uses that entire vertical capacity of the building to your advantage.

MHS Lift’s knowledge and experience in warehouse optimization helps businesses across the nation maximize space utilization, optimize the business operation while simultaneously increasing efficiency. A great example is a conveyer-based order fulfillment system and High Bay racking system we designed for a national shoe retailer. This customized solution improved efficiency by 30% and increased storage capacity which allowed the retailer to shrink the overall footprint of a new building from over 900,000 to 700,000 sq. feet.

Warehouse optimization helps businesses:

  • improve productivity
  • reduce operating costs
  • maximize capacity
  • improve safety and ergonomics

Partnership Approach

Our customized, hands-on approach takes into account that no facility is the same and no operation is the same.  As a full-service systems integrator, we sell a solution to a problem – which is why we invest significant time upfront to fully understand the problem. We learn as much as we can as quickly as we can about the specific operation so we can identify opportunities for improvement.

One of the first steps is to work with our clients to identify their biggest pain points. Is it labor? Taking too long to load a truck, find an item or pick an order? Or, running out of space and want to improve productivity? From here, we work together to establish goals.

To get a full understanding of the business operations and space, MHS Lift conducts a facility site tour and gathers critical data on inventory by SKU, order profiles, operational hours and continues an ongoing dialogue with customers throughout the entire process.

Based on this input, we develop several options – and devise a master plan from those options.  Our team of inhouse engineers creates sophisticated CAD plans of the facilities to help customers visualize our recommended improvements in our solutions.  We propose varying levels of automation based upon what we learned.  As the final phase of the design process, we walk clients through an ROI analysis to find the right level of investment to match their financial and operational objectives.

Implementation of the design is managed very closely to ensure that what we developed comes to fruition. Our In-house coordinators and project managers turn our plans into reality. Once the build is complete, operators and the rest of the team is trained efficiently – so the maximum value of our customers’ investment is realized.

The MHS Lift Difference:

While we think “inside the box” for utilizing space, we think “outside” the box for solutions. Case in point – a national food manufacturer had the goal of increasing storage capacity in a facility by 30 percent. We accomplished that – but in the process we also noticed their order pickers had a very a long pick path. So, we integrated into our racking system an ergonomic pick shelf that cut their pick path in half – by providing double the pick faces. This move will increase their efficiency by 30% or more.