A procurement plan usually counts its stock in items: 2,000 hygiene kits, 500 winter kits, 40 tonnes of food. A warehouse quotation counts square metres, pallets or tonnes. Between the two sit the cartons the items come in, how high those cartons can safely be stacked, and the floor a store needs to receive, count and dispatch them. Get those wrong and the space rented in August is full in October.
The Logistics Cluster's operational guide (opens in a new tab) makes the point that even a small volume of cargo may need a large area to operate in, and lists what to count: the largest volume held at any one time, the number of different items, room for the flow of work, kitting and repacking, how long the goods stay, and any buffer stock. This page turns the first of those into floor space and a cost.
Start from the carton, not the item
Ask each supplier for the carton: its length, width and height, its gross weight, how many items it holds, and how many cartons may stand on each other before the bottom one gives way. The packing list of an earlier order will often have the first four. A kit that ships in a carton of its own takes very different space from the same kit packed four to a carton.
Volume alone misleads. Cartons cannot be poured into a room: they stand in stacks of a fixed height on a footprint, and the gap above a stack that cannot go higher is space you pay for and cannot use.
How high can it go?
The lowest of these sets the height of every stack:
The carton
How many cartons the bottom one can carry. Supplier data, or a test on the first delivery; partly empty cartons never go at the bottom.
The handling
Without a forklift, the height staff can safely reach and lift from. With one, the reach of the machine and the space it needs to turn.
The building
Clearance under the roof, beams and lights, and the floor's rated load for the weight standing on each square metre.
Pallets or floor stacking
Pallets keep cartons off a damp floor, make counting quicker and move a whole stack at once, but they need a supply of pallets and a store laid out for them. Stacks built directly on dunnage or sheeting use the floor more fully and need no equipment, and are common in field warehouses. Either way, the Logistics Cluster's storage guidelines (opens in a new tab) keep stored cargo off the ground, and its stacking guidance (opens in a new tab) builds each stack from one item, in interlocking layers, with a stock card beside it.
Room to work
The floor under the stock is not the store you need. Receiving and dispatch bays, a quarantine area for damaged or rejected goods, a kitting table where kits are assembled, and aisles wide enough to count every stack and reach the oldest stock first all take floor. How much depends on the building and the flow of work, so the worksheet leaves it as an assumption for you to set: it opens at 40% of the floor, a figure to adjust, not a standard.
Work it out
Worksheet · works in your browser, nothing is sent
How much floor does the stock need?
It opens with an invented example: 2,000 kits, one to a carton, on pallets. Every figure is an assumption to replace with your own cartons, your store's limits and your own quotations.
The space
About 250 m² of store for 125 pallets.
- Cartons
- 2,000
- Volume of the cartons
- 168.0 m³
- Weight
- 24.0 t
- Cartons per pallet
- 16
- Weight per pallet load
- 192 kg
- Pallets
- 125
- Floor positions
- 125
- Floor under the stock
- 150.0 m²
- Store floor, with the allowance
- 250.0 m²
Check the weight per pallet or stack against the floor's and the racks' rated loads, keep fire exits and aisles clear, and hold food and hygiene items off the floor and apart from fuel and chemicals.
From space to cost
Storage is priced in more than one way: per square metre per month, per pallet position per month, or per tonne stored, often with separate charges to receive and dispatch each pallet or tonne. Ask every supplier to quote on the same basis for the same stock and period, with handling in and out, minimum periods and what happens to the rate if the stock leaves early. Then compare totals, as you would vehicle-rental quotations.
Price the risk as well as the space. Who bears loss and damage, how often stock is counted and how the counts are reported matter as much as the rate; the warehouse management guide covers the records a store should keep and how liability is written into the contract. Stock held through winter in a forward warehouse needs the same, as the winter pre-positioning guide explains.
What to send for a storage quotation
- The items, with the carton's dimensions, weight and stacking limit.
- The largest quantity held at any one time, and for how long.
- Where: the city or province, and any requirement on the site.
- How the stock moves: received in one delivery or several, released in call-offs or all at once.
- Special conditions: expiry dates to track, items to keep apart, security.
- The records you need: goods received notes, stock reports, counts and their frequency.
Zhikal provides project warehousing in Kabul and, on an assignment basis, in the provinces, with receiving against goods received notes, stock and bin cards, cycle counts and dispatch against your release instructions.
Sources
- Site Selection Planning (opens in a new tab)
Logistics Cluster, Logistics Operational Guide. What to count when anticipating storage needs, including working space, ancillary activities and buffer stock.
- Ground Storage / Stacking (opens in a new tab)
Logistics Cluster, Logistics Operational Guide. Building stable, countable stacks of cartons, bales and sacks.
- Physical Storage Guidelines (opens in a new tab)
Logistics Cluster, Logistics Operational Guide. Keeping stored cargo off the ground; stock cards and ledgers.
External sources are cited for the facts they report and were checked when this guide was last updated. Citing them implies no relationship with, or endorsement by, their publishers.