The geographical location of a warehouse should be determined by production sites and the physical position of target markets. In some developing countries, however, political consideration have sometimes over-ridden economic arguments and facilities such as warehouses, godowns, assembly areas and buying points for government organisation have been sub-optimally sited.
Warehouse managers have a number of important challenges including:
determining the most appropriate unit load(s)
optimising space utilisation
reducing the movement of labour, equipment and products/materials to a minimum
establish a safe, secure warehouse environment and
keeping costs to a minimum.