Future of Warehouse Design being shaped by Warehouse Science

The current scenario of Indian warehousing design is optimistic as it is fast picking up the western practices and technology. However there is still a wide disparity across the whole of India. Some warehouses which are owned by rich MNCs are of high standards, on the other hand, there are also many warehouses which are of low standards.
Many warehouses in India are constrained by small spaces. Unlike large warehouses owned by MNCs in the USA and Europe have area of 250,000 to 1-million-square-feet, generally the large of warehouses in India are quite small in comparison, between 5,000 and 25,000 square feet. This is due to less demand, expensive land at the outskirts of a major city in India and difficulty to acquire large piece of lands due to many owners of a small pieces of land. In addition, the demand for storage of products is much lesser than compared to western countries.
The warehouse structures are not properly Inefficient space utilisation is also a huge problem as many warehouses in India don’t have proper shelving system and the floors are dirty because it is not cemented.
In addition, considerable number of warehouses lack the basic semi-automated equipment such as MHEs, conveyors, dock levellers, for movement of goods inside the warehouse. Fully - automated machines and systems are very rare to be found in India. Automatic sorting and automatic packaging systems (which include pouching, carton erection, sealing and taping, wrapping and palletising) can be found only in a few warehouses in India.
Another major issue is the lack of efficiency, standardisation and automation in the processes. Many warehouses have IT systems, but they are only for the purpose of managing the customers and not for the warehousing staff. With lack of IT systems, the storage and picking of items is done in a manual way using a register, which is more time consuming and prone to human errors. Lack of WMS modules, barcode scanning or RFID systems.
The lack of efficiency and standardisation is compounded by issue of lack of trained manpower specialised to work in a warehousing industry. There doesn’t exist a properly established system in the Indian warehousing sector of having formal educational and training institutions which can provide skilled workers and cater to the latest trends and demands of the industry. Although the companies in India can hire workers at very low costs, many of these workers working in the warehouses are semi-literate or illiterate. Many warehouses also don’t have proper equipment and procedures to ensure health and safety of the workers.