Warehouse & Logistics
If expanding your warehouse isn’t an option but you’re looking to find more space, it’s worthwhile having a rethink of how your existing warehouse space can accommodate your needs. Especially before you go looking at a costly move to a bigger location. At Westgate, we’ve been helping businesses maximise their space for many years and here are just a few ways that can be done.
Internal welfare rooms for staff
It’s a legal requirement for employers to provide adequate and appropriate welfare facilities for their employees while they are at work. Depending on the type of work that is being done, different facilities will be required. Before you start looking at hiring portacabins or other types of external space to accommodate your staff, an internal welfare room can be created using the space that already exists within the warehouse. This can save you so much time and money!
Additionally, having a dedicated space for staff to have breaks and eat their lunch within the warehouse can be beneficial as it means workers don’t necessarily have to travel off-site.
When creating internal rooms for clients, we have a range of options. Anchorwall, our steel partitioning wall system, is a great option for a site room within a warehouse and because it gets bolted to the floor during installation you can be sure you’re investing in a solid structure. However, the great thing about Anchorwall is that it is technically a semi-permanent structure so it can be moved and adapted if changes are required in the future. A ceiling can also be added to properly enclose the space, or, as warehouse ceilings can be extremely high, you could add our Flexiwall to the top to create a dust tight room – perfect to create a canteen space where employees can eat and drink.
Similarly, our Hoardfast range of internal hoarding could be used. It’s free-standing and is available in a floor to ceiling fit. With our Hoardfast internal site rooms, there’s always the option of fire rated and sound proof panels which is ideal for work welfare spaces.
Mezzanine floors
Creating a mezzanine floor within your warehouse is a really clever yet simple way to provide extra space, whether it’s for storage or for any other reason. A mezzanine floor in many cases can double the available flooring space of your current warehouse. A mezzanine is extremely cost-effective as you’re pretty much creating valuable space out of nothing. You can even choose whether your mezzanine floor is permanent or temporary, depending on your needs.
At Westgate we are regularly contacted by manufacturing and warehouse facilities who are looking to enclose mezzanine floors with our Flexiwall product, for example Allport Cargo Services. This can be for a number of reasons including; preventing the spread of dust due to manufacturing processes or the reverse of this, to prevent dust getting to stored and finished goods.
Warehouse redesign
More often than not, warehouses have more space than they think they do. When a warehouse first opens, it may start out as one thing, but over time, grow, evolve and shift into something completely different; storing different types of products and incorporating different processes. The layout and design of a warehouse may not be the best use of the space, 5 or 10 years after it was built. Or, something new may need to be added to the warehouse which, on first observation, may not seem like it will fit within the existing setup. By taking a step back, analysing the current layout and coming up with a smarter plan, you can see how the space can better be used.
At Westgate we have helped businesses fit more into the space they already have, using our range of industrial partitions to section off warehouses for different uses. For example, NFT – a leading provider of time critical distribution required a separate space for storage of goods.
For help finding more space within your warehouse, talk to us at Westgate.
