The question sales asks every week
A prospect needs 300 pallet spaces from November and some shelving for small items. The sales manager asks operations whether there is room. The warehouse manager says it is tight, but probably, depending on what two existing clients bring in for Christmas. Nobody knows exactly how many empty locations there are by type, let alone how many will be empty in eight weeks.
So the answer is either a cautious no that loses a good client, or a yes that ends with pallets on the floor in the aisles in December.
Why the answer is always a guess
A WMS lists locations and their contents, but free space is not the same as usable space. Some empty locations are reserved for incoming stock, some are the wrong height for a standard pallet, some are blocked. And the future depends on inbound plans that live in client emails.
| What looks free | Why it may not be |
|---|---|
| Empty pallet locations | Reserved for expected receipts or seasonal stock |
| Half-height locations | Too low for the prospect's pallets |
| Bulk floor space | Needed for goods in overflow at peak |
| Shelving bays | Partly filled by several SKUs, hard to count |
Client inbound plans are the other gap. A container booked for three weeks' time takes space that looks empty today.
What guessing costs
Lost business when you say no to clients you could have fitted. Congestion, overtime and damage when you say yes to one you could not. Existing clients suffer too when their seasonal stock cannot be put away properly.
It also shapes pricing. Space that is scarce should be priced accordingly, and without a clear view you cannot tell when you are selling the last of it.
And it wears on the relationship between sales and operations. Sales feels operations is being cautious to avoid work; operations feels sales promises space that does not exist. Without a shared figure, each new prospect turns into the same argument, settled by whoever is more persuasive that week.
Peak makes all of this sharper. The weeks when space is tightest are also the weeks when existing clients bring in their largest inbounds, and a client signed in September on the strength of a rough walk-round can be the one that tips November into chaos.
The capacity view we build
- Location data from your WMS: type, dimensions, status and contents, refreshed regularly.
- Usable free space by site and location type, excluding blocked and reserved locations and part-filled locations below a threshold you set.
- Committed space from expected receipts in the WMS and from client inbound plans entered through a simple form.
- A forward projection by week, using committed inbounds, outbound trends and each client's seasonal pattern from past years.
- A what-if screen for sales: enter a prospect's space needs by type and start month and see where it fits and where it does not.
- Alerts when a location type is projected to run short, so operations can plan overflow or a slotting change in time.
What sales and operations get
A shared answer to the capacity question, by type and month, from the same data. Sales can make realistic offers. Operations can plan peak space before it is a problem. And existing clients' seasonal stock is accounted for before the space is promised to someone else.
Signs you need a capacity view
- Capacity is judged by walking the racking.
- Sales asks operations for space answers every week.
- Peak ends with pallets on the floor.
- Client inbound plans live in emails.
- You have turned down clients without being sure you had to.