Improving the effectiveness of warehousing operations: a case study

The warehouse is the interface area for production lines, market, customers and suppliers, and the business environment in general. Goods inwards (GI), constituting part of the warehouse activities, is the department responsible for booking-in the incoming parts from external suppliers. After the production process is improved, the resources in the warehouse are balanced to link the internal/external transfer of physical items. With a broader view of the GI activities, and a look into its future, the actual problems may become clear, understandable, and hence easy to solve. The aim of this paper is to study the problem areas in GI and provide solutions to increase the performance of warehousing operations. First, a conceptual framework has been developed to improve the effectiveness of warehousing operations. Second, a case study has been conducted with the help of the model to minimize the through-put time in warehousing operations. Finally, a summary of findings and recommendations are presented.