Intro to Warehouse Operations Management

One of the customary things an employee receives is a walkthrough of the entire warehouse, which is what I had to go through during summer mentorship (unfortunately for me, that additional post should have been made last month.) To start things off, I'd like to just show you what Unical Aviation is and what it looks like. Considering I've never been to an actual warehouse other than a Costco, Unical was definitely different than what one would expect at a distribution warehouse.

Unical Aviation Inc., offers a number of amenities to it’s employees, ranging from a wall of microwaves in the lunchroom or even a yoga studio on the front side of the . It’s important to consider that the environment plays a role in promoting morale of the workplace. Personally, my favorite part of these above amenities is the eating area. Aside from the owner being a Marvel fan, the figures also serve as symbolic motivators for the endurability of the company. 

Unical is a surplus aircraft distributor. What does that mean? A surplus aircraft distributor is a facility that buys or sells aircraft parts domestically and internationally; airlines represented range from American Airlines (US), Cathay Pacific Airlines (Asia), and Lufthansa Airlines (Europe). As such, Unical is also responsible for keeping expendable parts and major components of airplanes in it’s inventory. 

You would read the above shelving as:

2 - warehouse 2; warehouse 1 is Unical’s previous location

AB - refers to the aisles; aisles go as far back as ZE

10 - refers to the bay or section

D - level on the shelf, i.e. level A, B…

4 - 5 - basket number

F - refers to front of the warehouse; R refers to rear of the

     warehouse

The warehouse of Unical is arranged in rows upon rows of shelves, each containing baskets filled with bags of similar parts, which could be nuts, bolts, washers, and other expendable products. The rest of the warehouse includes bigger parts, “major components”, which range from engines, main frames, and landing gear.

This is a very general overview of Unical; the warehouse itself is made up of many different components and departments, which all circulate around the warehouse. One of the first things you have to learn in the warehouse is how to organize and read the labels. Sure, it sounds like an easy task, however, as you can imagine, that's a good number of things to understand. Knowing how to read a consignment code, let's say for example, JAL-MI137, is just as important as knowing how to read a basket label. This is another story for another day, so stay tuned!