Production warehouse

Warehousing is an integral part of every logistics system that stores products (raw materials, parts, goods in process, finished goods) at and between point of origin and point of consumption. Warehouses must be continually re-evaluated to ensure that they are consistent with both market’s demands and management’s strategies.

Types of warehouses:
*distribution warehouse or
*production warehouse

A distribution center is a warehouse in which products from one or more suppliers are collected for delivery to a number of customers.

The function of a production warehouse is to store raw materials, work-in-process and finished products, linked to a manufacturing and/or assembly process. Raw materials and semi-finished goods are delivered to a nearby production plant, and finished goods are received from this plant and can be directly delivered from the warehouse to customers or to other warehouses.

Raw materials and finished products may be stored for long periods, this situation increases when the incoming goods of raw materials is much larger than the production rate, or when the production rate exceeds the customer order quantity of finished products.

In production, ideally, raw material should arrive at a manufacturing facility just when it is needed and then immediately processed, the resulting products should be fabricated and assembled without delay, and the final finished products should be immediately shipped to their customers; in this situation (what could be termed pure “Just-In-Time” or JIT) there is little need for buffering or storing materials.

Production warehouse