Warehouse Trends 2023
Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash
Customer delivery expectations changed during the pandemic and have driven increased awareness of the importance of warehouse design. Let’s take a look at some design trends that are predicted to continue to shape warehouses during 2023.
Sustainability
As we saw in our previous blog on office design trends, sustainability is a key consideration for all commercial property in 2023. Companies are looking to reduce their carbon footprint and consider their environmental impact.
Warehousing can become more eco-friendly with the introduction of recyclable packaging materials such as corrugated cardboard. Warehouse buildings themselves can be monitored with timers for electricity, water and heating. Delivery fulfilment can be completed by electric vehicles or maybe even by bike or drones.
Use of space and fulfilment methods
On-demand warehousing is where businesses are able to store and fulfil orders temporarily in warehouses that have extra space. It is expected to continue to gain in popularity because it allows warehouse owners to make money from unused storage space and allows others to increase their storage capacity depending on demand. By having a centre in various locations businesses can reduce shipping costs and be able to deliver to customers within 1 to 2-days.
Typically fulfilling those customer orders followed one of three methods: In-house or self-fulfilment, third party logistic operator or drop shipping, where an e-commerce company uses a supplier to store, pack and ship orders for them. Now the trend is towards hybrid fulfilment where a seller uses all three types of methods. Again this allows businesses more flexibility over how to deliver orders to meet customer demand whether that is business to business or direct to consumer.
Automation
In order to achieve better picking efficiency the trend toward automation continues. This includes automated pallet shuttle systems, sorting robots and rail-mounted cranes that can manage containers
Freeing up staff from repetitive work to undertake more meaningful tasks could help attract and retain employees.
Other growing technology trends include wearable technology.For example, smart glasses allow staff to be shown information on picking paths and be sent real time messages from other workers once again improving efficiency.
NovaLoca has a comprehensive range of warehouse and industrial units for sale and to rent throughout the whole of the UK.
