Smart Warehousing: High-Density Mobile Storage Strategies Dominating 2024

After declines in 2022 and 2023, warehouses across North America are projected to see an upswing in construction and related investments in 2024. The goal for many is to begin to engineer the warehouses of tomorrow, fully automated, highly efficient e-commerce nodes along a fully automated, highly efficient supply chain.

Discover how high-density mobile storage can double your storage capacity without expanding your footprint, providing ample space for just-in-case scenarios without compromising just-in-time efficiency.

Founded in 1924, Montel is a company specialized in the design and manufacture of high-density mobile storage systems for a multitude of markets, including libraries, museums, industrial warehousing, education, healthcare, public safety, military, sports and indoor vertical farming.

From just-in-time to just-in-case

Pre-COVID, the prevailing warehouse management paradigm was just-in-time (JIT) inventory: keeping low inventory on hand and forecasting out as you fulfill orders. JIT inventories prevent perishable-food waste and allow for greater flexibility through higher vacancy.

But the widespread supply-chain disruption during COVID highlighted JIT’s one big weakness: even on its best days, JIT relies heavily on a responsive upstream supply chain. To make warehouses more resilient to this kind of widespread disruption, many facilities have transitioned to more of a just-in-case (JIC) model, where you keep more inventory on hand just in case.

If you see JIT and JIC as two poles along the same spectrum, facilities should take care to not take the wrong lesson away from this situation while considering how to reinvent their warehouse layout in 2024. It’s not about picking one inventory management model and rebuilding your warehouse to align with it; it’s about having a warehouse that can slide up and down the scale, from JIT to JIC and back again, when the market and supply chain call for it.

High-density mobile storage is the common-sense solution for building better warehouse storage in 2024—an effective doubling of your storage capacity without increasing your storage footprint. Plenty of space for JIC without expanding your footprint beyond your JIT limits.

Mobile workstations and automated robots

Warehouses are highly technical and technological spaces, where one worker could require databases of information, specialized tools, and shipping equipment like scanners, labelmakers, printers, and more to do their daily tasks. When you can take the back office with you wherever you go in a sprawling warehouse on the wheels of a mobile workstations, you can prevent worker fatigue, save time, and increase productivity.

And let’s not forget that many of these upcoming investments in warehouses will also no doubt include automated technologies, such as robotic vehicles that find and move inventory without human intervention. Some market analysts predict that 1 in 4 warehouses will be automated by 2027.

All of this raises an important question: Where are you going to put it all when you’re not using it? High-density mobile storage for warehouses optimizes inventory storage to maximize storage for everything else, including all the new tech warehouse staff can expect in 2024.

However you decide to invest in your warehouse in 2024, don’t hesitate to consult the storage experts at Montel. A free no-obligation consultation with your local Authorized Montel Distributor, which includes 2D and 3D renderings, can help you envision what tomorrow holds for your business.