Supply chain professionals have been faced with mounting challenges this year. As we advance toward the holiday season, these challenges are starting to permeate some sectors and have a knock-on effect on the wider industry. But what's causing the dominoes to topple and how can businesses break the cycle of supply chain disruptions – either this year or in the future?

The normal approach to a skill shortage in a company is to hire someone or to train someone internally. This can be a challenge for many industries and business sectors to find people with the right skills, while training someone can take a significant amount of time. However, there may be an alternative, hiring someone or training someone is essentially having more of the same. This might be the most appropriate or possibly the only solution to some situations, but in others changing the processes, systems and methods employed within the warehouse or facility first might reduce or remove the skills shortage in the first place.

Black Friday however busy is just one day in your peak period. It might be the busiest day, it might be your peakiest peak but it is still one day and the responses you deploy to deal with one day or even a couple is not necessarily the responses you need to successfully negotiate and manage your whole peak period. However planning for peak will mean that Black Friday becomes a more “normal peak”.

As a warehouse professional you probably do not have much input into how marketing and sales work and generate the demand on your warehouse. This plan looks at the actions and areas within your control and areas where input from the rest of the business can help.

Increasing your warehouse storage space does not just come down to improving the layout of your facility. There are also best practices you can adopt that make the best utilisation of the space you have. When combined with other efficiency measures, thinking smart and rationally planning how best to use your warehouse can increase the capacity you have available for storage.

One of the most effective ways of saving money throughout your supply chain is to improve the efficiency of your warehouse. The way your warehouse is set up to accommodate your business can make the difference between a streamlined warehouse and an inefficient operation.

The six layout tips below are inexpensive ways you can optimise the space you already have without having to make any major structural adjustments to your warehouse.