Optimizing Your Warehouse or Webshop Workspace: 7 Time-Saving Improvements
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by Verpakkingdeals.nl
7 min reading time
Seven practical improvements to your packing workstation, from table height to tape dispenser. With each step, calculate the savings per order in hours per month.
Those who pack their own orders don't lose most of their time to the packing itself. You lose time searching, bending, turning, and realizing that you've run out of the right box. Just a few seconds each time. For a handful of orders per day, this gets lost in the noise; for dozens of orders per day, it becomes a workday per month.
Below are seven improvements you can implement in an afternoon. For each improvement, we calculate the benefits, explicitly stating the assumptions so you can replace them with your own figures.
The Basis of Calculation: From Seconds to Hours
We calculate with an example company: 40 orders per day, 22 working days per month, resulting in 880 orders per month. A saving of one second per order is then 880 seconds, or almost a quarter of an hour per month.
Savings per order
Per month (880 orders)
2 seconds
approximately 29 minutes
5 seconds
approximately 1 hour 13 minutes
10 seconds
approximately 2 hours 27 minutes
20 seconds
approximately 4 hours 53 minutes
If you pack 15 orders per day, divide the results by almost three; for 100 per day, multiply them by two and a half.
1. Set Your Packing Table to the Right Height
A standard desk is approximately 74 cm high and thus too low for standing packing work. Rule of thumb: a work surface at elbow height minus 10 to 15 cm. For someone 1.80 m tall, this roughly translates to 95 to 100 cm.
At a table that's too low, you'll bend slightly forward with each box. This doesn't cost seconds per order, but it does slow down your pace by the end of the day. If necessary, raise the surface with blocks under the legs. Also, check your lighting: reading labels and addresses is faster with proper light.
2. Keep Everything Within Reach: The Golden Zone
The golden zone is the area you can reach without moving your feet or twisting your torso: roughly a semicircle with a radius of 60 cm around your hips, between hip and shoulder height. Everything you touch with every order belongs there; anything you grab for one in ten orders can be a step further away.
The golden zone should contain: tape, knife, marker, and your most commonly used packaging size. Outside of it: reserve stock, less common sizes, return bins.
Example calculation: if you spend 4 seconds searching or reaching for half of your orders, that's an average of 2 seconds per order: approximately half an hour per month.
3. Give Each Packaging Size a Fixed Place
Searching for the right box is the sneaky time-waster. The solution is boring and effective: each size gets one fixed spot, and that doesn't change. Your best-selling size goes closest to your hands.
Loose items in unlabeled boxes mean everyone but you has to ask where something is. A bin with a readable label solves that and shows how much is left.
One item per bin. Mixed bins waste search time and lead to incorrect grabs.
Label on the front, not on the lid. You read from the front, not from above.
Put a minimum quantity on the label. For example, "reorder at 20". Then no one has to think.
If you also sell physically, at markets or via a pickup point, writing prices by hand is the slowest method. A pricing gun does about one label per second including sticking; by hand, it quickly takes 8 to 10 seconds.
Example calculation: if you price 300 items per month and save 7 seconds per item, that's 2100 seconds, or approximately 35 minutes per month.
6. A Tape Dispenser Only Counts with Volume
With five boxes a day, you won't notice the difference, but with fifty, you will. Tearing off by hand means: finding the end, pulling it off, tearing it, straightening it. With a dispenser, it's one movement.
Calculate conservatively with 5 seconds saving per box. For 880 boxes per month, that's 4400 seconds, over 1 hour and 13 minutes. A Kinzo tape dispenser with 2 rolls (€ 9.95) pays for itself within the first month.
7. Keep Track of Your Packaging Stock, Especially Before a Peak
Running out of stock during a busy week costs more than the order itself: you grab a larger size, pay more shipping costs, or your shipment is delayed by a day.
Keep it simple. For each size, note three numbers: weekly consumption, supplier lead time, and the corresponding minimum. If you use 150 per week with a 5-working-day lead time, your reorder point is around 150 pieces plus a buffer. Check these numbers at a fixed time each week. For peaks like Black Friday and the Christmas period, double the buffer for your most used sizes.
In What Order Should You Approach This?
Correct the height of your packing table. Takes an hour, works immediately.
Clear the golden zone; only put what you use for every order in it.
Assign fixed spots per packaging size and label them.
Replace manual tape tearing with a dispenser.
Put a weekly stock check in your calendar.
Altogether, this example calculation amounts to two to four hours per month. More important than the exact number: you make fewer mistakes and can keep up longer on a busy day.
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