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Public Warehousing Best Practices for Loss Prevention

March 23, 2021
5 min read
3PL
Warehousing
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Common Loss Exposures in Public Warehousing

Preventing loss or minimizing loss exposure in public warehousing starts with knowing where your vulnerability and exposure exist. In warehousing, there are a few exposures that are common to the industry and completely preventable.

Fire & Flood

Because they’re seemingly random and often unplanned, fire and flood are two of the most prevalent loss exposures in public warehousing. Thankfully, they’re both easily preventable.

A wet, fire suppression system can offer early and fast response to what could be a deadly fire event. Water damage can be prevented by keeping all stored products at least 4 inches off of the floor of the warehouse either on pallets or racks. Shrinkwrapping palleted goods will offer additional protection.

Physical & Digital Security

Loss of product or company information is another major common loss exposure in public warehousing. Like fire and flood, physical and digital security can be maintained by utilizing intentional preventative measures.

In terms of preventing physical product loss, utilizing a secure public warehousing facility is the best way to ensure that your product isn’t walking out of the warehouse. On the digital side, utilizing a secure server network and utilizing a secure software program will ensure you don’t experience lost or corrupted data.

Contamination, Spoilage, & Damage

A bit of care can go a long way to prevent contamination, spoilage, and damage to your stored products in a public warehousing environment. Contamination can be prevented simply by being mindful of how your product is stored.

If you’re storing perishable items, ensuring that the warehouse offers proper temperature and humidity control is a great way to start. In terms of contamination and damage, ensuring proper housekeeping and stock rotation can minimize this common loss exposure in public warehousing.

Public Warehousing Loss Prevention 101

When you want to prevent loss and minimize loss exposure in your public warehouse, there are a few systems you can put in place early. The loss prevention methods below can help mitigate the risks of utilizing public warehousing, which is both a cost-effective and logistically convenient warehousing option.

  • Fire Suppression: A fire suppression system has early fire detection and a mechanism that makes it possible to start putting the fire out at the source. Utilizing this system may not prevent a fire, but it will help minimize the damage in the event that a fire starts in your public warehouse.
  • Inventory Management: When did the product get there? When should it be shipped out? Using an inventory management system in which stored goods are barcoded, have RFID, and are inventoried is essential to know the status of your products. This is not only for physical loss prevention but also for minimizing spoilage and damage.
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