Listen instead on your Monday Morning Drive:

Most warehouse managers believe show prep is the most important function in their operation. They’re wrong.

When I ask owners why they want a bigger warehouse, the answer is almost always the same: “If we had more space, we could prep orders sooner.” When I ask why they want to prep sooner, they say, “So we can find mistakes earlier. So we know what’s missing.”

That logic is flawed.

The Real Priority

If your goal is to prep shows a week early so you can learn what’s missing, you’ve got your priorities backwards. The reason you don’t know what’s missing is a process problem, not a space problem.

Operations begins the moment a return truck backs up to your dock. When you unload that truck, you QC every piece of equipment. You scan it in. You check inside cases to verify all parts and pieces. You restore anything that needs attention, close it up, put a zip tie on it, update the label, and get it back on the shelf.

This is job number one. Until that load is reconciled and put away, all other tasks in your warehouse stop. Other work continues elsewhere, but inbound takes priority.

Why Prep Time Expands

When you prioritize prep over inbound, your team starts pulling gear from un-QC’d cases. They dig through equipment that just came off a truck, searching for a cable buried at the bottom of a road case.

That’s why prep takes so long. You’re not prepping from organized inventory. You’re prepping from chaos.

When all your gear is QC’d and on the shelf, you know exactly where to find it. Prep becomes fast because you’re not hunting; you’re gathering.

The Floor Space Misconception

Take a look at your warehouse footprint. How much is storage? How much is operations?

Most owners think their warehouse is a storage facility. In reality, only half of it should be storage. The rest is working space. And that working space needs to be empty.

When I tour warehouses and see the work-in-progress area, I ask, “How often is this space empty?”

The answer is always, “Never. If it’s empty, something’s gone wrong.”

I see it differently. If that space is empty, something’s gone right.

The One-Third Rule

If you pressed me for a number, I’d tell you a third of your warehouse floor should be available for use at any given time. Maybe a quarter at minimum.

Think about loading into a ballroom that’s already set with banquet tables and centerpieces. You can’t fly truss, hang lights, or build a stage when the room is full. The same principle applies to your warehouse.

You can prep a show in a few hours if you have the space and the gear is ready. You’ll need a week if you don’t.

What a Good Warehouse Looks Like at Close

At the end of every day:

• All trucks are unloaded. If a truck comes in at 5 p.m., you stay late. You knew it was coming. It’s on the schedule. Clear that truck and put up the gear.
• All gear is QC’d and shelved. No cases sit around waiting to be processed.
• All aisles are clear. Forklifts, stock pickers, and people can move freely.
• Work in progress is squared off. If a staged order looks intentionally organized, nobody touches it. If it looks shoved together, someone will grab a case to use as a table.
• The floor is swept and trash is taken out. This isn’t optional. It’s a mindset.
• The next day’s plan is posted. Put it on a whiteboard, not in the warehouse manager’s head: “Thursday morning, 7 a.m., crew starts here. Load shows 1, 2, 3.”

Your crew should know exactly what to do when they walk in. They shouldn’t stand around figuring out priorities.

A Note on Technicians

If you’ve got technicians prepping your orders, we have a different problem to discuss.

Technicians won’t take out your trash. They won’t sweep your floors. They don’t belong in warehouse operations any more than your warehouse people belong in a ballroom running a show.

The 24-Hour Rule

Prepped orders shouldn’t sit on the floor longer than 24 hours. Prep a show the day it loads or first thing in the morning before it goes out.

Prepping early doesn’t gain you anything. It uses up floor space and creates opportunities for gear to get cannibalized, knocked around, pushed aside, or forgotten.

It takes the same amount of time to prep a show two days from now as it does to prep it right now. The difference is you won’t spend those two days protecting the prep.

The Storage Unit Test

If you have so much equipment that you can’t maintain open floor space, you don’t have a warehouse. You have a storage unit.

Find somewhere else to store the excess, or throw it away. I’ve seen your warehouses. Most of you just need to throw that stuff away.

Change Your Mindset

The most important function in your warehouse isn’t prep. It’s check-in, QC, and put-away.

Get inbound right, and prep takes care of itself. Get inbound wrong, and you’ll spend a week doing what should take a single morning.