Flow Storage will speed up the key functions in a Warehouse. Storage and Retreival of pallets can be signicantly faster with shorter travel distances. Picking speed of SKU's from Containers or Pallets can be improved many fold with much shorter travel times between picks, and automatic replenishment.
Flow Storage offers the highest use of the warehouse cube, enabling greater use of existing space, or the possibility to use less space. High levels of utilisation on well designed solutions can offer levels of 80 to 95%. Carton picking solutions can use 50% or less of the space of solutions such as Shelving.
FIFO (First-In-First-Out) is an automatic benefit on Pallet Flow and Carton Flow solutions. In Industries such as Food and Drink, this can offer great control benefits.
Even LIFO (Last-In-First-Out) Push Back solutions can offer a psuedo FIFO operation, with the right WMS (Warehouse Management System). Use of Multiple lanes per SKU can mean reseasonable sub-batches are used per lane, and as long as the oldest lane is emptied first, the net affect is FIFO overall.
The net affect of any of the above benefits will offer significant savings to an operation. Payback is normally less than 2 years and will then offer a 50% return on investment year after year.