Warehouse Design &
Consulting Services

A warehouse design consultant analyzes your current warehouse or distribution center operation — its physical layout, inventory profile, throughput performance, and operational workflows — and produces a detailed, optimized facility design that improves efficiency, reduces labor cost, and supports business growth.

The work typically begins with an AS/IS assessment: a thorough site visit, data collection, and current-state documentation. From that baseline, the consultant identifies gaps between your current performance and best-practice benchmarks, develops concept layout alternatives in CAD, and produces a final recommended design with full deliverables including floor plan drawings, equipment specifications, slotting plans, and ROI models.

A qualified warehouse design consultant also addresses non-obvious design factors: aisle width optimization for your specific equipment fleet, dock door count calculation based on throughput data, ergonomic pick face design to minimize injury risk, OSHA and fire code compliance review, and WMS software requirements aligned with the physical layout.

The difference between a good warehouse design consultant and a mediocre one is the depth of data analysis applied before any design decisions are made. MWS has been conducting AS/IS assessments and producing CAD warehouse layouts across 12 Midwest states since 1979. Call 515-635-1555 to speak with a consultant about your project.

Timeline depends on two variables: the scope of the design engagement and the complexity of implementation. For the design phase alone — site assessment, data analysis, concept development, and final CAD layout — a small facility (under 30,000 sq ft) typically completes design in 4–6 weeks.

Mid-size facilities (30,000–100,000 sq ft) require 8–14 weeks. Large distribution center designs and greenfield projects can take 14–24 weeks for design alone. Implementation adds additional time: 2–4 weeks for a small reconfiguration, 4–10 weeks for a mid-size redesign, and 8–36 weeks for large or new construction projects.

The most common cause of timeline extension is data availability — clients who can provide 90 days of clean SKU velocity and order data at kickoff move through analysis phases significantly faster.

Total timelines: small layout optimization, 6–10 weeks; mid-size redesign, 12–24 weeks; large DC or greenfield, 6–18 months. Call 515-635-1555 for a project-specific estimate at no charge.

Warehouse design consulting cost varies by engagement scope, facility size, and whether implementation services are included.

Realistic ranges: assessment-only engagements run $5,000–$15,000. Stand-alone slotting analysis ranges from $8,000–$20,000. A full AS/IS-to-TO-BE design engagement for a facility under 30,000 sq ft typically costs $15,000–$35,000. Mid-size facility redesigns (30,000–100,000 sq ft) commonly range $30,000–$75,000 for consulting and design.

Large distribution center designs can reach $60,000–$150,000 or more. Greenfield or new DC design ranges from $75,000–$250,000+. These ranges reflect design consulting fees only — equipment and installation are separate costs. For turnkey projects where MWS provides consulting, equipment, and installation, the consulting component is often partially or fully offset against the equipment and installation contract. Financing for the capital equipment component is available through Saulsbury Hill Financial.

The ROI context: a $40,000 design engagement that eliminates 25% of excess picker labor in a 50-person distribution facility typically pays back in under six months. Call 515-635-1555 or email sales@warehousesolutionsinc.com for a specific project estimate.

The right time to engage a warehouse design consultant is almost always sooner than it feels obvious.

Engage when: your facility is approaching 85% storage capacity; picking labor cost per order has grown 15%+ without a corresponding increase in order volume; your SKU count has grown significantly (20%+) in the past two years without a formal slotting review; you are considering signing a new lease, building a new facility, or evaluating an acquisition; you are about to invest in automation and want to optimize the baseline first; your order error rate or return rate is trending upward; or you have recently grown through acquisition and need to rationalize your warehouse network.

The engagement pays off most when called proactively — before a crisis, before a lease commitment, before an automation investment. Reactive engagements are more expensive and more constrained because design options are more limited. If any of the above resonates with your current situation, call 515-635-1555 for a no-obligation conversation.

The quality of your warehouse design is directly proportional to the quality of the data you can provide.

The most important inputs are: SKU velocity data (at least 90 days of order history showing picks per SKU); order profile distribution (single-line vs. multi-line, case vs. each, average lines per order); peak vs. average throughput (orders per day and units per day for typical peak vs. average); inventory snapshot (current on-hand by SKU, quantity, and location); facility drawings (CAD preferred; physical measurements acceptable if no drawings exist); ceiling height; current dock configuration; equipment inventory; and 3- to 5-year growth projections.

If you don't have all of this in clean form, don't let that stop you from calling.

Our site assessment and data collection process is designed to work with whatever information is available, and our consultants will identify critical gaps during the kickoff phase. We've designed excellent warehouses from incomplete data before — the analysis simply takes longer.

An independent warehouse consultant is a vendor-agnostic advisor who analyzes your operation, designs an optimized layout, and delivers recommendations — but does not sell or install equipment. A systems integrator designs and installs material handling equipment, often with in-house engineering support. Most integrators have preferred equipment lines they sell, which can introduce bias toward recommending equipment they carry rather than the optimal solution.

MWS occupies a hybrid position. We conduct rigorous, data-driven warehouse design consulting engagements and then execute the recommended design through our own engineering, equipment supply, and installation teams. This eliminates the handoff problem between consultant and integrator while maintaining the analytical discipline that pure consulting firms bring. We manage equipment bias through our methodology: every recommendation is data-justified, and we are transparent when a client's needs are best served by a product line or vendor we don't carry. Our 50-year track record and 99% satisfaction rate reflect this approach.

Yes. Cold storage warehouse design requires specialized expertise that most consultants and many integrators lack. MWS has conducted warehouse design consulting and installation projects in refrigerated cooler, freezer, and blast freezer environments across Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and our installation crews are cold-storage certified and equipped. Key cold storage design considerations: thermally efficient rack configuration; VNA racking to maximize storage density in expensive cooled space; ESFR sprinkler clearance requirements specific to cold storage; thermal break design at staging zones to prevent condensation and frost accumulation; rapid-open dock door specification to minimize thermal exchange during loading; floor heating systems to prevent frost heave in freezer facilities; and FIFO-enforcing storage systems required by FSMA and HACCP food safety regulations. Call 515-635-1555 to discuss your cold storage design project.

Yes. CAD warehouse layout drawings are a core deliverable in every MWS warehouse design engagement. We produce 2D floor plan drawings showing the complete facility layout — rack systems, aisle configuration, dock area design, staging zones, pick modules, and all material handling equipment — in AutoCAD-compatible format. For larger projects and new construction, we also produce 3D renderings that allow operations teams, architects, and contractors to visualize the finished design before installation begins. Our in-house engineering team produces stamped engineering drawings for mezzanine systems and structural elements requiring local building department permitting. Rack installation drawings are produced to ANSI MH16.1 and RMI standards. As-built drawings are prepared and delivered upon completion of all installation work.

Yes — both are integral parts of a comprehensive warehouse design consulting engagement. Automation feasibility assessment evaluates your throughput volume, SKU count, order profile, available capital, and growth trajectory against a structured framework for determining whether automated technology will generate sufficient ROI. If automation is recommended, we design it into the physical layout from the beginning — conveyor routing, VLM placement, AS/RS staging conveyors, and robot pathway design are integrated with the racking and aisle layout, not bolted on afterward.

WMS consulting addresses the software layer that controls your operation's physical workflows. We help clients define WMS functional requirements based on their designed layout, evaluate WMS vendors against those requirements, and prepare RFP specifications for apples-to-apples vendor comparison. The physical layout and WMS configuration are designed in coordination: pick path routing in the WMS must reflect the physical slotting plan, and location numbering must reflect actual layout geometry. Systems designed together work together.

The return on investment from a professional warehouse design engagement comes from multiple simultaneous value streams: reduced picker travel time (15–30% per pick improvement) that directly lowers labor cost per order shipped; increased cube utilization (closing the gap toward an 85%+ target) that defers or eliminates building expansions; throughput gains that allow more orders to ship from the same facility without proportional headcount growth; order accuracy improvements that reduce costly pick errors ($25–$75 each in total landed cost); and reduced workplace injuries from ergonomic design (musculoskeletal injuries average $50,000+ per OSHA incident).

A realistic ROI model for a well-executed warehouse design consulting engagement in a mid-size Midwest distribution facility: 20–30% labor productivity improvement, 15–25% throughput increase, 3–5 year deferral of planned expansion capital. Payback periods for combined consulting and equipment investment typically range from six months to two years. MWS will build a specific ROI model for your project as part of the design engagement. Call 515-635-1555 to learn more.

MWS serves operations of all sizes — from 5,000 sq ft facilities that need a better shelving and racking layout to 500,000+ sq ft distribution centers requiring comprehensive redesign with automation integration.

Our consulting methodology scales with the project: a smaller facility gets a focused, practical engagement that delivers real results without large-firm overhead; a larger facility gets the full analytical depth of our data-driven process. Small businesses and mid-market operations are the core of our Midwest client base.

Our leadership is owner-operated — Tim and Brandy Hennigar, with a combined 50 years of material handling experience — and every project receives the same direct engagement and accountability regardless of size. We also carry in-stock Unarco racking inventory covering 85% of small-to-medium project requirements, enabling 1–5 day pull times and 1–3 business day quote turnaround for standard orders. Call 515-635-1555 — no minimum project size, no minimum order.

AS/IS to TO-BE analysis is the professional methodology for warehouse design consulting that ensures your redesign is grounded in documented reality rather than assumptions.

The AS/IS phase involves a thorough forensic audit of your current operation: every rack bay is measured, every pick path is observed and timed, every KPI is captured — throughput per labor hour, order accuracy, cube utilization, dock cycle time, and receiving productivity.

This documentation phase reveals the actual constraints in your operation, which are often different from the perceived constraints. The TO-BE design is the optimized future state built from the gap analysis between the AS/IS baseline and your performance targets, growth projections, and industry benchmarks. Every change in the TO-BE layout is data-justified — not assumed.

Operations that attempt a warehouse redesign without a formal AS/IS assessment consistently encounter the same outcome: the obvious problems are solved, but the non-obvious structural inefficiencies reappear in a different location.

The AS/IS to TO-BE methodology eliminates this failure pattern. MWS has conducted AS/IS assessments across all 12 Midwest states — Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Wisconsin, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota — for operations ranging from 8,000 sq ft single-room warehouses to 400,000+ sq ft distribution centers. Call 515-635-1555 to start your AS/IS assessment.