Whether they’re in the warehouse or out on the shop floor, your workplace shelves should provide easy access to equipment and products for workers and customers alike.
That said, it’s common to see companies making the same shelving mistakes over and over again. At best, an ineffective or non-existent strategy for shelving can be inconvenient. But when we’re talking about shelving heavy items, breakables, and toxic materials, even the smallest errors could prove fatal.
Keep reading to learn the mistakes to avoid when setting up your workplace shelving.
1) Products At The Wrong Height
Toys on the top shelf? Big sellers nowhere near eye-level? In retail environments like supermarkets where you have a lot of space to fill, shelving mistakes like these can make a huge dent in your profits.
This is why you retailers use tactics like placing kids’ items on lower shelves and reserving the eye-level shelves for top-selling products with the biggest revenue.
The weight, material, and contents of containers are also key considerations in both customer-facing and storage environments, especially when shelving heavy items. For example, you should avoid placing heavy glass containers or toxic materials on high shelves.
2) Incorrect Shelving Use
Equipment and products come in so many shapes and sizes, it makes sense for there to be a range of different shelving units out there. And, as these wall shelf unit designs show, it’s also possible to find shelving that fulfills several purposes in one.
Despite all this, it’s common across all kinds of workplaces to see makeshift shelving solutions like cardboard trays holding small items together on wire racking or hanging items stuffed in boxes. If your workplace has a range of different-sized products and equipment, invest in the appropriate shelving system options for those items.
3) Haphazard Layout
All too often, companies don’t consider how a haphazard or unplanned shelving layout can make even simple tasks a lot more complicated for both their workers and customers. For example, if all the materials you need for a certain task are in different shelving units, gathering equipment will take more time and effort than necessary.
This is why devising a strategy for shelving – whether it’s hidden in the warehouse or in full view of your customers – is so vital. On the shop floor, you’ll need to consider factors such as entry points and traffic patterns to devise an effective and efficient shelving layout strategy. And in storage areas, your layout will depend on how and when your workers will need to access products and equipment.
4) Buying the Bare Minimum
The cost of shelving can be a big financial outlay when you’re setting up a new business. As a result, many companies order just enough shelving to house the equipment and products they have at present.
But efficient business purchasing should include investing in more shelving system options than you might need right now as a way to provide room for your business to grow. Otherwise, you might have to turn down a future opportunity because of a short-sighted strategy for shelving.
Common Shelving Mistakes to Avoid
Shelving products and equipment in a safe and efficient way can often seem like a question of common sense.
That said, with so many different shelving units, products, and equipment to consider, designing an effective and appropriate strategy for shelving is the best way to avoid making these shelving mistakes in the future.
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