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  • Essay / The purpose of warehouses - 560

    Warehouse is a large building where finished products are stored and raw materials are shipped or received. Additionally, it is used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transportation companies and customers. The main objective of warehouses is to maximize the use of available storage space. Warehouses have been around for hundreds of years and Europeans were the first to invent warehouses when shipping goods to other countries. Most warehouses were built near shipping ports and goods were stored there before being shipped along shipping and trade routes. Warehouses were used to store imported foods, such as corn, valuable goods, and several other materials. Warehouses were very important in the early 1800th century, when the railroads began, warehousing logistics saw a vital change. There were more warehouses built near railroad stations to store products than at shipping ports. These were more convenient locations and closer to the final destination of the goods. Railroads made it much easier to move goods from one place to another; and warehouses played a vital role in achieving this goal. In today's century, warehouses are known as "distribution centers" and these distribution centers offer high-tech capabilities that help move goods throughout the supply chain. It is also a specialized building with refrigeration or air conditioning, in which goods are stored for redistribution to retailers, wholesalers or directly to consumers. A distribution center is a primary element, the element of order fulfillment and the entire order fulfillment process. There are four types of warehouse: public, private, contact and multi-client warehouse. First, public warehousing offers businesses a variety of workforce solutions, including order picking, packaging, and inventory control software. The main characteristics companies look for in public warehousing are geography, technology, expansion and flexibility. This allows businesses to rent space according to their needs and specialized services. The different types of public warehouses are commodity warehouses, bulk storage warehouses, cold storage warehouses, household goods warehouses, and general merchandise warehouses. Second, the private warehouse is occupied under a long-term lease and provides control to the owner. The main advantage of private warehousing is that companies can design the warehouses the way they want. They can configure the warehouse according to specific requirements. Third, contract warehousing is a long-term contract signed between the company and a party providing warehousing services. The contract warehouse provides additional services such as transportation, order processing, customer service, etc. We also speak of a 3PL warehouse where the company allows a specialized company to provide it with one or more logistics functions..