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Unit 12: Warehouse Management

(d) Subscribe to the share capital of a State Warehousing Corporation; Notes
(e) Act as agent of the government for the purposes of the purchase, sale, storage and
distribution of agricultural produce, seeds, manures, fertilizers, agricultural implements
and notified commodities; and

(f) Carry out such other functions as may be prescribed.
The Central Warehousing Corporations Act of 1962 had twin objectives, that is, to provide
scientific storage for agricultural produce and also to provide market finances. CWC plays an
important role in the chain of marketing for agricultural produce. It serves not only as a time
and space value but also adds place value to the goods.

There are three agencies in the public sector which are engaged in building large scale storage/
warehousing capacity namely, Food Corporation of India (FCI), Central Warehousing
Corporation (CWC) and State Warehousing Corporations (SWCs). The total capacity of public
warehousing as of October, 2006 was 56.50 million tonnes.

12.4 Warehouse Design Principles

The basic warehouse design principles, whether the warehouse is a small manual operation or
a large automated facility, are based on incorporating in the design the four principles described
below.
These are:
 Product movement,

 Handling technology,
 Storage plan, and
 Future expansion.

Product Movement

Physical facility characteristics and product movement are the main criteria for determining the
warehouse design. The factors that need to be considered in the design process are:
 Number of stories in the facility,
 Height utilization, and
 Product flow.
The ideal warehouse design is limited to a single story so that the product does not have to be
moved up and down. The use of elevators or stairs to move product from one floor to the next
requires time and energy. Furthermore, stairs and elevators normally become bottlenecks in
the warehouse operations since many material handlers will be using the facility at the same
time. The number of stairs or elevators is normally limited due to both space requirements as
well as cost.
Regardless of facility size, the design should maximize the usage of the available cubic space by
allowing for the greatest use of height on each floor. Through the use of racking or other
hardware, it should be possible to store products up to the building’s ceiling. Maximum effective
warehouse height is limited by the safe lifting capabilities of material-handling equipment,
such as forklifts, and fire safety regulations imposed by overhead sprinkler systems.

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