• Warehouse managers are responsible for managing the warehouse in compliance with the company’s policies.
• Secondly, they manage the receiving, warehousing, distribution, and maintenance operations.
• Thirdly, they set up the layout and make sure that there is efficient space utilization.
• Next, they begin, coordinate and enforce optimal operational policies and procedures.
• Lastly, they control the stock control and reconcile with the data storage system as well as prepare the annual budget.

Warehouses shift varies between busier and slower days. This totally depends on the season, new product orders or special discounts and sales.

• The first thing is to track the busiest seasons in order for planning employees' shifts accordingly.
• Secondly, schedule the team several weeks in advance and notify them about the extra working shifts for a few months before the holidays.
• Thirdly, maintain an ongoing relationship with the sales and marketing teams for making sure that they notify me about all the upcoming products. This will help in scheduling the team ahead of time for preparing for this incoming flood of work.

For getting the maximum accuracy, there are two procedure models:

• Firstly, Stocktaking Procedure provides an appropriate basis for planning and stock control procedures. This helps in examining the level of stock losses inside the business.
• Secondly, the Counting Procedure provides support in accounting for differences in-stock quantities.

Some applications are:

• Firstly, financial services. 
• Secondly, banking services.
• Thirdly, customer goods.
• Then, retail sectors.
• Lastly, controlled manufacturing.

There are two types of storage actions performed,

• Firstly, Planned Storage. This is needed as planned for meeting the regular customer demand.
• Secondly, Extended Storage. This requires the storage of inventory in excess of normal warehouse operation. Some of the reasons for extended storage requirements are seasonal demand, erratic demand, discounts, speculative purchases, product conditioning, etc.

The most common performance measures are:

• Firstly, Handling productivity. This is often measured in units of lines picked per hour or total handling cost per unit.
• Secondly, Space utilization. This is examined on the basis of the percentage of total space available for storage, percentage of useable storage space actually used for storage, and storage cost per unit of product.
• Thirdly, Accuracy. This requires measures of location and record accuracy, the percentage of items picked correctly, and the percentage of orders picked correctly.
• Then, Cycle time. This is a critical performance measure for determining service and efficiency where dock to stock cycle time is a critical measure of how long it takes to make material available following receipt and order cycle time measures the elapsed time from order receipt until order shipment.
• Lastly, Cost and inventory. This is a performance measure that includes total distribution center cost per unit handled, distribution center cost as a percentage of sales, and inventory turnover.

• Firstly, warehouse managers are pressurized for decreasing the costs to survive the competition in the industry.
• Secondly, one of the recent key performance indicators (KPI) introduced into the supply chain is the perfect order metric. A perfect order is deemed to be one that has been delivered on time. Thus, one of the major challenges of the manager is to achieve the perfect order.
• Thirdly, overstocking or understocking can be dangerous, thus it is important to make frequent small orders as to when the inventory is required so as to decrease wastage and costs. After that, a warehouse manager must find ways to get hold of the staff which may be done by providing healthy working conditions and flexible working hours.
• Lastly, Some of the environmental issues that can occur are energy consumption, affecting items such as lighting, mechanical handling equipment, and heating.

Warehouse design criteria address physical facility characteristics and product movement. The important factors for the design process are:

• Firstly, the number of stories in the facility
• Secondly, height utilization
• Thirdly, product flow
• Lastly, the number of stories in the Facility

1. Private warehouses - This facility is owned and managed by the same enterprise that owns the merchandise handled and stored at the facility.

2. Public warehouses - This is operated as an independent business offering a range of services such as storage, handling, and transportation on the basis of a fixed or variable fee. These warehouses generally offer relatively standardized services to all clients.

3. Contract warehouses - This has evolved from the public warehouse segment and provides benefits of both the private and public alternatives. Contract warehousing is a long-term, mutually beneficial arrangement that provides unique and specially tailored warehousing and logistics services exclusively to one client, where the vendor and client share the risks associated with the operation.

• Firstly, lineate a list of relevant factors linked with selecting a warehouse.
• Secondly, allocating a weight to each factor to indicate its relative importance.
• Then, assigning a common scale to each factor (ex 0-100 points) and designate any minimum.
• After that, scoring every potential location according to the designated scale, and multiply the scores by the weights.
• Lastly, the total the points for each location, and choose the location with the maximum points.

Some of the considerations determine the location of a warehouse

• Firstly, this must be a market service area and cost of distribution from the warehouse to the market service area.
• Secondly, availability of transport requirements and facilities in the form of rail, link roads, and road vehicles.
• Thirdly, checking for competition by rival companies and whether they have warehouses in the same area.
• Next, availability of power, water, gas sewage disposal, and their cost.
• Then, labor supply and labor costs in the area.
• After that, check for restrictions associated with warehouses.
• Lastly, the cost of land for the warehouse and other costs.

Various methods of handling goods are,

• Manual handling - Manually operated trucks and trolleys
• Powered trucks and tractors, operator-controlled and driven
• Powered trucks and trolleys, driverless, computer-controlled
• Crane systems
• Conveyors
• Robotics

The core attributes of security within a warehouse are as follows,

• Firstly, appropriate recording of inbound and outbound products
• Secondly, authorizations for all dispatches
• Thirdly, accurate audit trails
• Then, regular stock checks
• Lastly, the use of appropriate storage equipment

• A WMS can process data more quickly and can coordinate movements within the warehouse.
• Secondly, it can produce reports and handle large volumes of transactions as experienced in e-commerce operations.
• Thirdly, the introduction of new technologies in WMS operations not only improves your competitiveness in a challenging market but can also be instrumental in meeting ever-increasing customer demands.
• Lastly, WMS is an invaluable tool for improving an organization’s productivity and customer focus.

This refers to is an internet-based application that is developed, hosted, and maintained by a third-party software provider on secure servers. The vendor rents out the system to a number of different clients. Those clients in turn will select the various modules inside the software they require and pay for them as they use them. The advantages of SaaS WMS are:

• Firstly, lower cost of entry
• Secondly, reduced start-up costs
• Thirdly, instant upgrades
• Then, user-driven innovation
• Lastly, the ability to turn on and off as required, eg to run a temporary warehouse operation

There are three phases,

1. Pre-Engineering It is important to identify the strategy of the company, both short and long term. It could be a storage facility, or a cross-docking facility, or a reverse logistics depot.

2. Conceptual design After the total storage space, one can decide how big this facility needs to be, and how much will it cost.

3. Layout planning This includes the layout design, how much manpower is required. Then begin with the investment and the analysis of the operating costs of the different alternatives.

There are generally three types of expenses involved while calculating the costs.

• Firstly, General Overhead Cost. This contains the cost of space per cubic square foot. It may further include rent or mortgage, property taxes and utilities. General Overhead Costs also comprise the cost of racks, tables, and other equipment used in staging areas.
• Secondly, delivery cost. This cost includes freight charges from outside vendors. These costs may also include the cost of gas, the insurance, and the cost of the delivery trucks. These rates are subject to the time involved in negotiating rates and selecting vendors, as well as the time to prepare shipping documents.
• Lastly, the labor cost. This involves the receiving of incoming goods, including entering the relevant data into the computer and assigning warehouse positions. It includes the time taken to move goods from shipping to pallet positions.

The parameters to be considered are: Range of services: If one contractor provides various services then it is better to hire one party for all functions.

• Market experience: A contractor might be old in the industry and know the tactics of the trade.
• Quality of management: The products that are being stored should be taken care of and not mishandled.
• Health and safety records: The tools and machines managing the consignment should be of the latest and high on technology and value for ensuring safety.
• Strategy: Though an outsourcing partner is the best in the field but is located very far from the company, then it is not advisable to hire it.
• Financial Stability: The partner should deliver at a time and should show financial stability to carry out the required tasks.
• Shared user / public warehouses: It is important to find out which services, the partner is providing.

Baselining refers to a metrics system in which the present performance of the organization is compared with historical metrics. The baseline represents the organization’s performance in terms of schedule, the effort involved, and defects. The method of baselining is:

• Firstly, start the project. For estimating the project effort and for planning reviews and testing.
• Secondly, During the project. For determining whether a corrective measure is required.
• Lastly, End of the project. For identifying if the project was doing something good which should be institutionalized.
• And, further, for identifying whether the project was missing something which should be done on a similar project in the future.