LSC801: WCS Warehouse Audit Report - Storage & Logistics Analysis

This report presents a comprehensive audit of the WCS warehouse, evaluating various aspects of its operations. The audit covers general storage and warehouse practices, including security measures such as perimeter fencing, surveillance cameras, and security protocols. It examines the implementation of the 5S methodology, warehouse layout, and the use of IT systems, including WMS and data backup. Equipment maintenance, planning processes, and quality control procedures, including inbound and outbound processes, are also assessed. The report further analyzes the stock location system, communication strategies, and green/sustainability practices. Health and safety practices, risk assessments, training programs, and warehouse performance metrics are evaluated, with a focus on performance awareness, data capture, and performance management procedures. The report concludes with recommendations for improvement, addressing areas such as IT system upgrades, and enhanced security measures to improve overall efficiency and operational effectiveness, especially in response to the global 2020 Coronavirus pandemic.

Running head: WCS warehouse report
WCS warehouse report
Student’s name
Institutional affiliation
Date

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Executive summary
Like any other business, warehousing is an essential business in the economy. It is
enriched with activities and which are tiresome. The warehouse is the determinant of most of the
firms in the economy of a nation. A warehouse must have all the required resources, and it must
meet the set standards. Ensure quality service in a warehouse, and frequent audits are conducted.
Here comes an audit report for a virtual warehouse visited. The discussion will internalize five or
six parts that have audited. The inspection was done based on external areas, internals areas,
systems and equipment, warehouse processes, Health and safety, and finally, housekeeping and
performance measurements.
Contents

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WCS warehouse audit report...........................................................................................................4
Company profile..............................................................................................................................4
Audit................................................................................................................................................4
General storage and warehouse practices........................................................................................5
Security........................................................................................................................................5
5S methodology...........................................................................................................................6
Warehouse layout.........................................................................................................................6
IT systems....................................................................................................................................7
Equipment maintenance...............................................................................................................7
Planning.......................................................................................................................................8
Quality process.............................................................................................................................8
Stock location system...................................................................................................................9
Communication..........................................................................................................................10
Green/ Sustainability practices...................................................................................................10
Evaluation of the warehouse health, safety practices, and risk assessment...................................11
Training......................................................................................................................................12
Register and practice..................................................................................................................12
Warehouse performance............................................................................................................12
Performance awareness..............................................................................................................13
Data capture...............................................................................................................................13

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Performance Management procedures..........................................................................................13
Planning.....................................................................................................................................13
Coaching....................................................................................................................................14
Reviewing..................................................................................................................................14
Action.........................................................................................................................................14
Conclusion and recommendations.............................................................................................14
References......................................................................................................................................15
Appendix 1#...................................................................................................................................17
WCS warehouse audit report
The audit is a quality assessment tool that ensures scrutiny of all the warehouse activities.
Moreover, it applies to all other business for quality measurement. It helps the management to
identify the upcoming challenges and also measure the quality of their effort. It determines
where the team should improve. It also applies to all transaction records, and hence it ensures
proper resource utilization (Beck, Francis, & Gunn, 2018). The purpose of this report is to outlay
all activities carried out in the WCS warehouse. WCS is a third-party logistics service provider.
It is specializing in temperature-controlled storage. On a brief history of the company, it was

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established in the 1980s, and it has been one of the leading innovators in the long term storage
industrial sector.
Company profile
WCS works under define policy as a distribution center that is demand-driven. It is long
term storage, which is also a supply-driven. It is situated on the south island in New Zealand.
The company deals in the room of a variety of agricultural, marine, horticultural, and some
processed products used in manufacturing processes. After storage, the goods are therefore
distributed to both international and domestic markets. It is closely located to the heart of the
Tasman fruit-growing region (Tawiah & Boolaky, 2019). Proximal to the port if Nelson, the
largest fishing port.
Audit
We managed to visit the company for an inspection, and a lot of information was
extracted. The company has several operating departments. Routines and official managing for
every sector. For a company to reflect good results or quality output, there is a need for
organized management. We audited the most crucial department that will always determine the
service provided to the customers. The company culture promotes innovations and inventions for
better services. Before digging deep into the main audit parts, the company has a factor
significant enough to motivate the workers. The company ensures salaries are paid in time, and
there is increased pay on the overtime (Nash, 2020). The company entirely supports workers and
has covered their lives, and hospital bills are catered. All the workers report direct to the chief
executive officer, and therefore there is immediate feedback. Those are some of the indicators of
a good management team. And hence success is adopted and well planted in the organization.

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The audit was performed in terms of sectors, and each industry was treated as an independent
variable. The audit checklist is attached as appendix 1.
General storage and warehouse practices
All the company practices and storage factors were audited. The following aspects were
considered.
Security
The company has a very tight security day and night. The security department has
ensured that external is well secured with perimeter fencing, security gates, and Barrie's, which
are in good order. The perimeter wall is made of thick concrete and a live wire on top to ensure
no access to unauthorized persons. Security is very crucial since a warehouse contains lots of
expensive customer goods (Goyal, Routroy, & Singhal, 2019). The company has also installed
security lights. The security guards are vigilant about any access attempted by any suspected
person. The company has enhanced surveillance cameras all over the storage. It has both hidden
and seen cameras for top evaluation and monitoring of the company activities. The company is
also sensitive to any fire outbreak. It has several LPG gas and diesel for MHE kept in a suitable
location for safety. It has intruder alarm systems installed and inspected frequently. All exits are
very secure, and stock is adequately protected from theft and pilferage.
5S methodology
The company uses a five s method to organize warehouse activities for customer
satisfaction (Richards & Grinsted, 2020). The system methodology is utilized during the
handling of the goods in the company. The process begins with the sporting goods out to identify
the grades and qualities. After sorting out, they are now put in order depending on the ability of

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the products to be standardized. After straitening, the shining products are now put into the
standard for quality measures and then offered to the customers for sustainability.
Warehouse layout
The warehouse layout has the following sectors well laid out for operation purposes. It
has loading and unloading sectors in place. A reception area, storage area, picking area, and a
dispatch area. During auditing, the five regions were found to be well organized and spacious
enough to allow for the related operations.
IT systems
The company is currently operating under fourth-generation technology. It has installed
security cameras. The goods are coded with cordless sensitive codes, which enable them to be
monitored in the warehouse (Giama, Manoloudis, & Papadopoulos, 2020). The company has a

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system of network communication. It has machines and transport vehicles. There installed alarm
systems.
There are warehouse Management systems. The systems are adequate for the current operations.
No voice and scanning detectors. Data backup system with daily update and separate data store.
The company needs to launch fifth-generation technology, which will ensure all the operation
speed is improved. The company has a plan to establish an online catalog that will provide
clients can see the available services and the open space for convenience.
Equipment and maintenance
WCS operates based on a 24-hour notice from customers and plan their resources based on past
year seasonality trend and concluded contracts. To have the flexibility and right quantity of staff
for their seasonal operations, especially for seafood products (fish season and high-volume
operations), they balance out permanent forklift drivers with temporary ones, being flexible in
resource planning. Thus, they can switch from five days/week, eight hours/day operations to
seven days per week/twenty-four hours/day regime with short notice. According to WCS, they
encounter significant volatility in arrival by hours, as trucks are not coming on time. They also
wish that container movements (between seaport and WH) could be more equally spread by
weekdays for their side-lifter capacity optimization and human resources better planning.
Put away is performed based on empty rows, chambers data from WMS, and based on
their decision where to allocate stock to have separate product storage by clients (preferred not to
mix stock, especially, of similar products). They have a considerable amount of re-stacking
activities for seafood products, as they come loose in containers and need to be shipped back
free, too, but are stored on pallets in racks. Also, they may have to handle a pallet twice in a

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freezer, not stretch wrapped and after wrapping, changing storage location, leading to double
handling.
The mechanical handling of the equipment is maintained to favor the excellent condition
of the material. The staff has a correct license for type truck operated. There are responsible staff
trained to perform MHE. The MHE is serviced regularly with the service and repair records well-
kept and up to date. The lifting equipment is inspected every six months. All defects are
reported to the employer immediately. Safe working load limits are strictly observed for the
safety of the material (Kashmanian, 2019). The equipment is alternatively used, and the company
has never faced chain breakage out of the failed machines.
Planning
There is contingency planning for risk mitigation. All contingency plans are recorded for
all necessary parts. The equipment downtime is registered to ensure no risks during operation.
System downtime is also recorded for improvement and decision making. Labor issues are
recorded and handled by the management team for necessitating the working environment.
Supplier issues are also recorded and felt with the management team to ensure there is an
excellent working regime (Chang & Stone, 2019). The emergency contacts are listed. It is kept
exposed to all the workers for immediate response in case of any risk occurrence. The
contingency team is readily available
Quality process

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There is an inbound process manual available for all the workers to know their roles.
Vehicle booking in the system is well utilized. Vehicle arrivals are scheduled for order and
priority. There is a pre-notification of goods to be received (Rocchi et al., 2018). Vehicles are
also immobilized during unloading. There are proper delivery instructions issued right at the site
before distribution. They are in multiple languages. And cars are immobilized during unloading
for safety purposes. The inbounds goods have instructions on handling. The dock area is bright
and of stored materials obstruction. There is sufficient stock of empty pallets available. And the
palate space is ample the pallets are useful for holding goods. There is adequate space to lay
products for checking and repackaging. There is a process to identify pallets for docking goods.
There is an area set aside for dispatching of the cross-docking pallets. The received pallets are
recorded. A system checks the production quantity. The log of supplier non-conformance is kept,
some of which are incorrect paperwork, quantities, products, condition of goods, packaging, and
pallet overhang. There is sufficient handling of equipment. The handling equipment system is of
a high standard and is tailored to ensure no wastage of time and resources.
The number of stock stored is managed, and the number of layers of pallet stacks high is
depended on the type of goods to be stored and the available space. However, some shelves do
not allow racking. The process is continued with the recording of the themes to stock. There are
quarantine areas for non-compliance. The quarantine areas are kept to curb situations like the
covid-19 outbreak. The company has isolation chambers for both goods and people suspected or
imported from affected areas. The coronavirus outbreak has a tremendous negative impact on the
business, and therefore changes are needed between the situations. The quality control area is
primarily provided and fitted with the appropriate systems. The non-conforming stock is dealt
with immediately.

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Stock location system
The high value goods are stored securely, and the stock location is identified using
operational bar codes that are cordless. Non-moving products are regularly reviewed; there is
perpetual inventory taking place. The stock counting accuracy is measured, and the systems are
maintained frequently. The errors are thoroughly investigated and highly avoided. Location IDs
are marked clearly. The system management directed put away. The FIFO stock rotation is
followed correctly (Alfi & Triyani, 2019). The goods are best before the date stick management
system is observed. There is a double interleaving undertaken. The system slotting is used
efficiently. The random location system is used. The stock is transferred between locations based
on the ABC analysis. The location cubes are well utilized. With racking of some goods. The
space utilization is closely monitored to ensure no wastage. The part pallets are consolidated
where possible. Product tacking is enhancing to ensure there is no out of stocking for reliability.
The damaged items are identified during the quality inspection and dealt with immediately.
Details are stored such that they do not need overhung pallets. The company has a stock
locations systems.
Communication
WCS has incorporated employees' internal communication boards. The induction board
informs the employees about the main hazards and risks. The site team, fatal disease information
i.e., Covid-19 outbreak. The personal protective equipment like a minimum requirement. There
is a board for tracking the leading key performance indicators. The other communication
department is the third board, which is responsible for planning staff vacation. During lunchtime,
the urgent updates are announced. (Henry et al., 2018). The company has typically been
embracing both vertical and horizontal systems of communication. The vertical transmission

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ensures directives from the topmost official are prioritized. The smooth communication is
passed between the same levels of management.
Green/ Sustainability practices
For sustainability, the company has ensured there are efficient building heating systems:
controlled, monitored, and turned off when the warehouse is not in use. Eco lights are also used,
and the views are also switched off when the area is not in use. The waste receptacles at the end
of each aisle.
Moreover, there is a process for disposing of surplus packaging. It is sold locally for the
maintenance of the inventory. The waste disposal arrangement is in place and closely monitored.
Goods like cardboards, stretch wrap, and papers are recycled. The resource management act of
1991, which states that there should be smart consideration of the discharge of contaminants into
water, air, or land, is ensured—the action of hazardous substances. And the new organisms’ act
of 1996 is observed (Tsatsakis et al., 2017). The company provides no waste disposal to the
water earth or air to ensure no environmental pollution.
Evaluation of the warehouse health, safety practices, and risk assessment
For safety and health-related issues and practices, the workers are aware of the following
regulations which guard the operations of the company and legislation practices as well:
 Health and safety at work act 2015 of new Zealand (Sissons, 2016)
 Ensure safe stacking and storage based on the best practice guide of 1999 (Shelley,
2019).
 Ensure signage for premises storing hazardous substances and harmful goods