“Picking density” has been at the forefront of any warehouse since the recent rise of ecommerce.

Referring to the number of available SKUs in a given area, “pick density” is one of the bigger metrics many warehouses struggle with when ensuring items are processed and handled correctly and efficiently. 

While every warehouse has their own strategies for improving picking, the type of storage used in these strategies is often overlooked.

Warehouse mezzanines are a great example of this. Properly placed, a mezzanine can go a long way towards improving pick density, as well as providing additional working space throughout the entire warehouse.

Improving Pick Density & Item Storage With Mezzanines

One of the biggest advantages to pick density that mezzanines can add is increased overall floor space. While it may be obvious to want to devote the increased floor space to storing items for pick density (as opposed to other common uses for mezzanines like office space or materials production), the increased room also allows for additional shelving and storage on the mezzanine. 

Specifically, this increased storage space can be used for more specialized item storage. By their nature, items stored on a mezzanine will be slightly harder to access than the items on the shop floor (on your pallet racks and the like). This makes mezzanines an ideal landing place for item types such as:

• Overflow/safety stock
• Seasonal goods (that can be rotated in and out) 
• Items due to be returned to their manufacturer
• Returns to be processed

and so on. Using mezzanines in these ways can help reduce the burden of storing goods through the rest of the warehouse.

Similarly, this can also help you expand your inventory. Mezzanines could allow you to carry a small number of items that tend to sell better in a certain geographical area. Or you could partner up with another business and offer some overflow storage to them in exchange for other products or a monthly storage fee. 

Finally, one of the more complex ways mezzanines can help is through multi-level picking methods. Multi-level batch picking is a method in which all orders on a given level of the warehouse are picked at the same time, and then taken to a second location where they’re sorted out into individual orders. By using a mezzanine for storage space, you can actually improve overall pick density by organizing certain, more popular products into higher-density locations, allowing them to be all picked one after another and speeding up the overall order handling process. This can be applied to both automated warehouses, as well as warehouses still employing more manual picking solutions.

Whatever your warehouse deals in, if you need to improve your overall picking density & speed, a mezzanine could be the ideal solution.