The Many Advantages To Leasing Contract Warehouse Space
posted in Bricks and Mortar Business |Outsourcing is becoming a popular tool for running a business. Companies outsource many of the work formerly performed by internal departments. Some examples of the departments whose work is outsourced might be human resources and payroll, the IT department, and some manufacturing. There is one service that you might not immediately think of. This is your warehousing. On the West Coast, a Los Angeles Contract Warehouse can increase the efficiency of your company and can save you money. Whether you are in New York or Los Angeles 3PL (third-party logistics) can be the best solution.
One of the most compelling reasons to use a contract warehouse is that it gives you more flexibility. Even if your company owns and runs its own warehouses, there may be some times of the year when you have extra inventory that you need to store. If a contract warehouse were not available to you, you would need to have excess warehouse space that would just sit empty for most of the year. The rule that time equals space equals money tells us that owning warehouse space that lies fallow for any amount of time is wasteful of scarce resources. Carrying this idea forward, you can see that the less space you own and the more you lease can increase your efficiency.
When you choose to lease contract warehouse space, you need to consider the characteristics and features of the space as you make your decision. While important in every location, in the Los Angeles area, an important consideration is whether the warehouse is on stabilized ground. This characteristic is even more important if the inventory to be stored consists of oil field equipment or heavy equipment of other types. Other characteristics to look for are high ceilings to allow for high rack storage, a dry and well-insulated building to protect weather-vulnerable inventory, and a location that is close to a highway so that the transport truck can get the goods to their destination quickly.
The next area to consider after the physical building; is the warehouse personnel. In your own warehouse, you have the responsibility for training, managing, and paying the warehouse workers. By contrast, the staff and management of the contract warehouse have specialized training and only one goal, which is ensuring the proper storage of your goods. This leaves you and your company the capacity to concentrate on your core competencies.
A final consideration is your ability to keep tabs on your inventory. If you work with a progressive, high-tech warehouse, they will have a web-enabled tracking system. Using this system, you should be able to access your inventory information online so that, at any moment, you can verify for yourself the quantities and locations of your inventory. This system eliminates the chance that you will waste time on hold while someone else checks your information.
It should be obvious now that third-party logistics is an important consideration in determining your storage solutions. The three areas that you need to investigate in making your selection is the quality of the physical building, the reliability and knowledgability of the staff, and the convenience of online access.
