If your production floor feels small right now, it’s time to look over those plans and see if there’s any space you may have forgotten. If you’ve found any such areas, try out these ways to use unused production floor space.

Take Advantage of Height

While you’re on the floor, go around and see if there are clear areas hidden behind tall walls of equipment or racks. Doing this will help visualize areas that need to occupy the space. Take advantage of adding some height to those areas so they’re visible. Doing this will help your vertical storage management system recover close to eighty-five percent of floor space that’s not currently occupied. Increasing the height can also benefit inventory accuracy, improve ergonomics, and even increase the picking accuracy.

Condense by Storing Bulk

You can make the most of your production floor space by storing it in bulk. All that wasted space next to inventory wastes money. By using a better storage system with bulk, you’re condensing products to help fill in those empty gaps. While you’re looking over aisle space, minimize the extra space with inventory that can amply fit and sit there.

Reconfigure Aisle Space

Take back your aisle spaces by reducing the width of your aisles. If your aisles are wider than they should be, they’ll reduce the productivity of your workplace. Reduction in aisle space will help expand the number of aisles and racks.

Build a Level or Two

Sometimes, building wider shelves isn’t the answer. It’s a good idea to build your floors up to accommodate for extra space. By creating a mezzanine, you’ll have a freestanding floor space, which will help workers as they go in between aisles. There will also be better organization system on lower levels. You can build stories over existing production lines, storage areas, and other parts of your plant. They’ll double your available square footage.

Store Above the Doors

You can also use available, vacant space by storing above doors. That’ll help with better organization and condensing of inventory currently in areas overpopulated with supplies. Additionally, you can add space above doors for hardly used items such as cleaning supplies and paint.

Create an Inventory Management System

Another way to use dormant space is to improve or develop an inventory management system. By using one, you’ll have greater authority over where the location of inventory is, the life-cycle of your current layout and supplies, and you’ll be able to keep up with accurate stock numbers. Having a system will significantly improve space usage.

The ways to use unused production floor space will help determine where additional space currently resides. By using your room, you’ll also help with cost-effective savings by expanding shelves in empty areas of your production floor.