TEXTILES.ORG
From profitability to customer satisfaction, warehouse management affects every part of an event rental business. Companies doing it well continually fine-tune their processes for inventory oversight, equipment tracking and overall organization to keep chaos under control and create a strong foundation for growth.
Accurate inventory is essential to maintaining efficient workflows, but managing the many moving parts it requires is no small task.
“Inventory has always been our biggest challenge,” says Rhona Dias, general manager at BC Tent & Awning Co. Inc. in Avon, Mass. Nearing 30 years at the company, she has seen it grow from a mobile trailer office with a small, rented storage space to a 16,000-square-foot warehouse in 2000 to its current 25,000-square-foot space.
“It’s not only about determining where to put and track items to optimize loading but also deciding when something is no longer usable,” she says. “If we’ve repaired furniture or a tent as much as we can, but it’s still not fit for a customer, we’ll sell the item on Facebook Marketplace or have a yard sale and invest in a replacement.”
Managing multiple warehouse locations only compounds the issue. “Inventory is one of the larger hurdles we face,” says Alex Mathis, CEO of Orlando, Fla.-based iRentEverything, which operates across three spaces: a primary 30,000-square-foot warehouse, a secondary 15,000-square-foot space and a two-acre storage yard.
“With all that, we’re bursting at the seams,” Mathis says, noting the company is planning further expansion. “Dealing with multiple locations gets complicated pretty quickly, especially when you consider that just one tent can comprise thousands of parts.”
A place for everything
When every square foot counts and equipment is constantly in rotation, staying organized is key.
“We start from the top down and try to departmentalize things,” Mathis says. This includes staffing. In addition to a director and assistant director of warehouse operations, iRentEverything has department heads and managers across areas such as vinyl, metal, chairs, tables and textiles, as well as an inventory control manager. “We don’t want one person to have a purview of multiple departments,” he says. “We want that person to be a master of what they’re working on.”
With less square footage to oversee, Dias maximizes shelf space where tents are stored and keeps items such as chairs and tables in designated spots, with areas for cleaning or repairs clearly marked. Equipment-tracking technology also has been transformational.
Going a step beyond standard warehouse management software (WMS), which helps businesses automate manual tasks and streamline operations, both Mathis and Dias recently implemented radio-frequency identification (RFID) tracking software to save time and improve the accuracy of hand counting equipment as it exits and enters
the warehouse.
With RFID, items are tagged with a small chip and antenna that store product information. When these tags come into range of a “reader”—typically placed on the doors of a warehouse or within a hand-held scanning device—they automatically transmit the product data to the company’s WMS. This allows multiple items to be scanned at once and keeps warehouse records updated in
real time.
“Some items are too small to have a tag, so there is still some manual scanning required, but ultimately, it’s a great fail-safe for tracking,” Mathis says.
The time saved has helped his team keep up with quick turns more easily while staying true to its thorough loading process. “It starts with the equipment going out,” he explains. “Once an order is confirmed, we send it to our logistics team to vet the order and ensure product availability. It is then converted to a packing list that is sent to our warehouse. As they pull the inventory, they verify twice to ensure all items needed are there and in good condition before loading the trucks. Once equipment is received back at the warehouse, we do preventative cleaning and maintenance before it goes back on a shelf or in the yard.”
Following a similar process, Dias employs a color tagging system for items that can’t be repaired or cleaned right away; for example, green is good to go, but red means it is not ready for a client. The team tracks these conditions manually in its WMS.
The AI advantage
While manual tasks remain an important part of many workflows, artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly shaping how warehouses optimize efficiency, says Joe Mangum, founder of RentKit, a WMS that incorporates AI into its route building, product management and communication tools.
“Since small shops are having to keep up with the likes of Amazon and other online shopping centers, the rental operations that are taking advantage of automation tools like RentKit’s automated messaging based on warehouse order triggers are staying ahead of the competition and driving new growth in the industry,” Mangum says, pointing to the tracking of tent components as
an example.
“Each size of a company’s tents can be assembled in the software based on the subcomponents required to build the tent and adjusted to accommodate different setup surfaces and configurations,” Mangum says. “When a 20-by-40 is booked and requires all the 8-foot leg poles left in the warehouse, the system will not allow a 20-by-20 tent of the same style to be rented, even though you still have the tops and other components required. We offer flexibility to override these, but the system is alerting users along the way, so nothing is overlooked.”
RentKit’s usage and sales-by-product reports are also helpful in organizing efficiency by providing a clear picture of what’s moving and what’s not. Clients typically use this data to rearrange their warehouses with high-traffic items in areas most conducive to efficient truck loading and off-loading.
Adapting to the changes AI is driving is an ongoing challenge—and opportunity, Mathis notes. “We love to try new things,” he says. “Not everything works, but we love the possibility of what’s out there.”
A plan for progress
For some operations, exploring what’s possible starts with the basics: clearing clutter, organizing space or implementing WMS.
“If you are feeling like you need something to improve the efficiency of your rental operations, the best advice I can give you is: It’s probably long past time to do it,” Mangum says. “As a rental owner myself, I understand how scary it can feel to change your operations even when you know it will help in the long run. From my experience in working with hundreds of rental operations, once you decide to make a change and you go all-in, it’s very rare that you regret it, and no matter what, you will grow in ways you never thought possible.”
For those looking to scale up their operations, Mathis offers a few lessons learned. “If you’re buying a product, don’t just think about the product you’re going to buy,” he says. “Think about the racks or shelves that are going to store and protect it. Think about the trucks that are going to move it. Think about the team you have and whether additional training is needed. Because the worst thing you can do is invest in a product, service warehouse or even component that you aren’t ready for yet or didn’t think through. As you grow, have a process for everything you’re doing, make sure you’re thinking through all the details and at the end of the day, you’ll be successful.”
Holly Eamon is a business writer and editor based in Minneapolis, Minn.
SIDEBAR: Ask the expert
Jason Bader, principal at The Distribution Team, a consulting company, has more than 40 years experience in the distribution industry and specializes in warehouse organization and management.
- What’s the most impactful change a rental company can make to improve warehouse efficiency quickly? With any warehouse, one of the best things is to understand what your most frequently picked items are and locate those closest to the shipping door. I would suspect that most rental warehouses are arranged by product group. That isn’t bad, but I would take the top 10% of the transacted items and stage them in a “hot pick” zone. The less you travel with these items, the less potential for damage.
- What should companies track to measure warehouse performance? Picking accuracy would be paramount. It is expensive to have to deliver twice. You could also look at “cycle time,” the time it takes from order print to order staged for delivery or “will call.” And I am a big believer in cleanliness; I can generally tell if a place is efficient simply by the appearance.
- How often should companies revisit and update their warehouse processes? If there is a new line of product or new picking technology being introduced, these should trigger a reexamination. And since I am an AI geek, I would run my procedures through ChatGPT every three to six months.
- Do you recommend any specific storage systems or inventory management methods? Barcode scanning is certainly an efficient way to ensure accuracy, but if someone wants to go next level, they should be looking at RFID labels and capture systems.
- How do you assess whether a warehouse needs a major redesign or process improvements? If a company thinks they have outgrown the space, this is the time to attempt a redesign or realignment of product. Are all of the SKUs moving? That can often free up a ton of space. Is the traditional pick equipment requiring really wide aisle spacing? It may be time to look at more efficient picking equipment. Once these little hacks are exhausted, it might be time to bring in a firm to help with redesign.
SIDEBAR: Performance starts with people
The most underrated factor in warehouse management is the people, says Alex Mathis, CEO of iRentEverything in Orlando, Fla. “You can have great processes and products, a giant warehouse and all the bells and whistles, but all of that is just a shell unless you have a strong team behind it.”
Ensuring your warehouse team has the right tools and knowledge to be successful starts with training. With a warehouse crew ranging from six to eight people, Rhona Dias, general manager at B.C. Tent & Awning Co. Inc., Avon, Mass., has found that one to two weeks of training before officially starting on a job is the sweet spot for her team, with safety meetings held every other week for all employees.
With a warehouse crew of 25, iRentEverything holds daily stand-up meetings that include a safety topic of the day, as well as monthly safety briefings for the full operations team. New employees do not have a standard training timeline. “We treat them individually and give them the resources and time they need to be good at what they do,” Mathis says.
The more effective the training is, the more empowered employees will feel to share ideas and improve processes. “It’s really important to ask for their input when you’re making business decisions,” Dias says. “They’re the ones out in the field doing the work. You might have some great ideas, but checking in with them will go a long way.”
Cleanliness is another important factor. “We talk a lot about cleanliness from a warehouse safety perspective—but also from a show perspective,” Mathis says. “Our warehouse is the heart of our house, and we don’t treat it differently from departments considered to be the front of the house. Our warehouse environment and uniforms reflect that and help retain a sense of continuity and respect across the whole company.”