How COVID will change warehousing and distribution forever! By Debra Wilkins
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ertain parts of the COVID impact – wearing masks, keeping a 2 metre distance from others, remote working/learning – are (fingers crossed) temporary. But the impact of COVID on the warehouse is going to be long and lasting. As the virus spread throughout the world, we saw a ripple effect; an outbreak or transportation delay in one part of the world had a devastating impact across the globe, causing shutdowns due to warehouse closures or missing or delayed supplies. The global supply chain fought to keep up as the virus spread. At the warehouse, some organisations were left with excess inventory they couldn’t ship sitting in inventory, while others were at a standstill, as they waited to receive inventory at their depleted warehouse. Combining this supply-chain nightmare with unpredictable consumer behaviour – some industries saw unprecedented demand, while other industries saw demand plummet – left warehouses in a bind. Even after COVID is no longer a threat and the mask mandates go away, social distancing will continue. It might not be 2 metres, but warehouses will continue to keep workers spread further apart than they were pre-COVID. This includes keeping and maintaining the one-way traffic aisles, sanitisation stations and designated work areas. Keeping these precautions in place prevents the spread of a future pandemic, as well as the common cold or flu viruses. To ensure the overall health and safety of the workforce, some form of social distancing is here to stay.
Receiving goods just in time (JIT) for manufacturing kept inventory costs down and utilised space more efficiently. When COVID hit, this lean strategy left many manufacturers with inventory shortages and, in some cases, caused production to stop completely. While lean manufacturing will remain a best practice, the balance between JIT inventory and safety (buffer) stock will change. To prevent future inventory shortages leading to production shutdowns, manufacturers will keep more inventory on hand than before. Exactly how much more is up for debate,
Prior to the pandemic, most manufacturers had adopted lean manufacturing as a best practice. INFORMATION AND RECORDS MANAGEMENT SOCIETY 41
