The Purpose of Warehouses

Warehouse is a large building where finished goods are stored and raw materials are shipped or received. Also, it’s used by manufactures, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport business and customers. Warehouses primary purpose is to maximize the usage of available storage space. Warehouses have been around for hundreds of years and European were the first ones, who invented warehouses by shipping goods to other countries. Most of the warehouses were built near shipping ports and goods were stored at these warehouses before they were sent along shipping and trade routes. Warehouses used to store imported foods, such as corn, valuable merchandises and several other materials.

Warehouses were very important in early 1800 century, once railroads began warehousing logistics went through an essential change. There were more warehouses build near railroads stations to store products than shipping ports. They were more convenient locations and closer to the final destination of goods. Railroads made it much easier to move goods from one location to another; and warehouses were an essential component in making this occur.

In today’s century warehouses known as “distribution centers” and these distribution centers offer high-tech capabilities that help move goods through the supply chain. Also, it’s specialized building with refrigeration or air conditioning, which is stocked with goods to be redistributed to retailers, wholesalers, or directly to consumers. A distribution center is a primary part, the order processing element, and the entire order fulfillment process.

There are four types of warehousing: Public, Private, Contact, and Multiclient warehousing. First, Public warehousing offer companies a variety of labor solutions including picking, packing, and inventory control software. The main thing companies’ look for public warehousing is geography, technology, expansion, and flexibility. It’s allow companies to rent space as necessary and specialized service. The different types of public warehousing are commodity warehouses, bulk storage warehouses, cold storage warehouses, household goods warehouses, and general merchandise warehouses. Second, Private Warehousing is occupied on a long term lease, and offer control to owner. The main advantage of private warehousing is that the companies can design the warehouses the way they wanted. They can set the warehouse around specific requirements. Third, Contract warehousing is a long-term contract signed between the company and a party providing warehousing services. The contract warehouse provide for additional services such as transportation, order processing, customer service, etc. Also, it’s called 3PL warehousing where company allows a specialist company to provide it with one or more logistics functions.