Hernán Villalba Muzzin
HERNÁN VILLALBA MUZZIN
Warehouse design and physical flow: margin is lost by walking

Warehouse design and physical flow: margin is lost by walking

A warehouse doesn’t ‘get messy’: it’s quietly designed to create extra travel, extra touches, and extra urgency. I diagnose physical flow with simple signals—how many times you touch an item, how far it travels, and where the promise breaks.

7 min
Hernán Villalba Muzzin

Hernán Villalba Muzzin

Article author

Reading
    • meters walked
    • items moved “just for a moment,”
    • damage from repeated handling
    • incomplete kits that force re-shipments
    • and urgency created by “we can’t find it” or “it wasn’t where it should be.”
    • everything mixes
    • everything gets touched multiple times
    • and priorities change with every message.
    • time
    • error
    • damage
    • coordination.
    • poor rotation logic
    • picking without sequencing
    • receiving mixed into available stock
    • no true quarantine for nonconforming items
    • and no real kitting area for projects.
    • crossings
    • backtracking
    • aisles where receiving, replenishment, and picking fight for the same space.
    • aisles turned into storage
    • staging turned into stock
    • receiving invading shipping
    • project orders mixed because there’s no consolidation zone.
    • partial shipments
    • second visits
    • dead time on-site
    • internal blame.
    • items for the same project arrive across different days
    • installers carry “just in case” and come back
    • boxes get opened constantly “to confirm,”
    • projects mix in shared spaces
    • missing parts are discovered late—after a date is promised.
    • touches per order line
    • travel time vs productive time
    • partial shipment rate
    • picking errors (true cost)
    • handling damage
    • dock-to-stock time
    • kit completeness (projects)
    • logistics rework (re-pack, re-label, re-slot).
    • walk the warehouse for 30 minutes
    • follow a real order
    • ask “why is it here?” three times
    • observe where truth stops being visible.
    • clear physical flow → digitization makes it visible and repeatable
    • unclear physical flow → digitization makes confusion faster.
    • chronic urgency
    • repeated partials
    • constant searching
    • normalised damage/returns
    • memory-dependency.
Imagen 1 — Warehouse design and physical flow: margin is lost by walking
Strategic Audit

Key control points: Warehouse design and physical flow

  • —Is there a defined standard for this operation?
  • —Do the same dependencies repeat weekly?
  • —Does the team know the exact decision criteria?
  • —Is there visibility into the real process bottleneck?

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