Shadowing Practice: 7 Common Warehouse Problems and How to Fix Them - Learn English Speaking with Video

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This week we're going to look at some of the really common issues that people have in operating their warehouses, the impact on the business, and some really easy tips to try and fix those issues.

We're not going to be going through everything, but some of the really common ones.

So you're going to have to forgive my sketching because I'm going to be drawing some warehouses during this session.

Okay, so if I just draw a very, very simple warehouse here, doesn't really matter what size it is

and we've got a let's say we've got a an in dock

and an out dock

and we've got some pallet racking running down this way comment down below why it shouldn't run

that way so we've got some pallet racking here

and we've got some assembly areas and

so on going over here what are some of the things

that we're trying to achieve with our warehouse let's just start with

that let's start with the end in mind

and I always like to think of this as a bit of a triangle

because there's three things we're trying to achieve one is we

want to be cost -effective we want to operate with you

know a fair labor cost inventory cost rental cost building cost whatever it is maintenance cost we want to try

and keep the cost down as much as possible level with

that we've got the customer service we want to be providing

a good service to our customers whether they be internal or external.

And then a very strong third one, some would of course argue that it should be number one, is safety.

So let's bear in mind those three things as we go through some of the common issues

and we'll have a look at how these issues impact cost, service and safety.

One of the most common issues that people are faced with with their warehousing is a lack of capacity.

So let's just stick capacity up here and think about the things

that impact our ability to really utilize this space well

and remember of course with warehousing we're not just looking at

the footprint we're looking at the height as well we want to utilize

that cubic capacity so number one of course is inventory

and whenever anybody says to me look we're running out of

warehouse space we've got to reconfigure our warehouse we've got to

get another warehouse I always say have you looked at the inventory

because most organizations

that I've worked with over the last 30 years carry quite a bit of slobics slow obsolete

and excess stock and of course it's that old issue

that no one wants to write it off

so i know it's a bit 101 but

if you're running out of warehouse space look at what you've

got in there have you got any slobics have you got stuff

that shouldn't be in there you'd be amazed at what ends up in warehouses the owner's boat or two

records from the office stuff

that could be off -site in a much cheaper storage location it's just cluttering the place up

so have a look at what you're storing is the key to begin with

another thing in no particular order here have a look at your aisle widths and by

that i mean the sort of face -to -face aisle width

between your pallets uh maybe you're operating at 3 .5 meters

or less or more you know a big industrial warehouse might be operating at five meters

because you've got very large pieces of equipment being moved in and out.

One of the, I was going to say easy, it's a pretty easy way to get more capacity into your warehouse.

It's actually to narrow those aisles.

You'll be saying, ah, but that means changing equipment and so on.

Not necessarily.

You may find that your equipment can operate in a slightly narrower aisle and over the sort of length of the building,

if you're able to shuffle those aisles closer together, shuffle the racking closer together you can actually fit in more rows of racking

and i've seen companies actually increase their capacity by 30

and just doing

that you may need to change some of the equipment i'm not talking about going to narrow aisle stuff

that needs guide rails and things like that but things like our articulated forklifts if you're currently using counterbalance trucks

reach trucks if you go to articulated forks you can get operate in a much narrower aisle

and you're going to get more rows of racking in there without too much impact on productivity

so have a look at your aisle widths there's another one next one

which people often don't think of is have a look at the beam height

so I have to scribble something else down here put up

with my drawing imagine we are looking now this way

and we're looking at the palette racking it's not a very thick pen is it

we're looking at the pallet racking in this dimension and we've got the beams here

make it a bit bigger on which sit our pallets

and we've got some big pallets and we've got some little pallets

and we've got some more big ones hopefully you're seeing where i'm going with this it's always interesting

when i go and see a new client's warehouse

and i like to go up to end of the warehouse

and look across the racking through the racking and

if there are lots of holes in the racking

if you can see all the way through to this wall

because of all these air gaps let's put those in another

color you know there's all these either full pallet slots empty

or more importantly you've got all these very small pallets with lots of gaps above them that's a good indication

that your beam heights are probably worthy of adjustment

and what i mean is these beam heights can go up

or down maybe the product range has changed over time maybe you've got less full pallets now

or maybe the you know the pallets have gone from 1 .5 meters high to 1 .8

or something like that just check

that the beam heights are appropriate for your pallet configurations it's

not something you want to be changing every day of the week of course

but after a few years this can get out of kilter

and you can find lots

and lots of extra space just by having a look at those beam heights

and making sure they're more appropriate the next thing I want to talk about is travel your people

and what tends to happen

when they are picking product of course as they are traveling up

and down the warehouse depending on the type of picking methodology

you're doing whether you're doing wave picks batch picks individual picks

but let's just say for a minute that you're picking an order

and you're picking something here and then you have to go around

and pick here you might be on a forklift you might

be on some sort of ride -on piece of equipment

and what we're trying to do is to minimize that travel time

because that travel time is dead time it's it's wasted time to a degree

and the way that we do that is to make sure

that we understand our product ABCs

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which are the fast movers the A's the less fast movers the B's

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and the slower movers C's and even the dead stock the D's and we want to try and get

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let me get a different color here we want to try

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and get all of the A's let's say this is our

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inbound

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and outbound two simple docks here we want to get all

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of our A's kind of you know an egg shape like

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that why because we're going to minimize the distance going to

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and from inbound outbound and

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so on we're not going up to the top of the

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warehouse all the time to pick product that's easier said than done

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if you have a very simple product range

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and quite a simple warehouse you can people tend to know

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which are the fast movers so you can group those nearer the dispatch area

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makes it easier for picking faster for picking just a tip though don't put lots of products

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that are very similar next to each other so this is not an advert for these pens or cover the brands

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but you know don't put the green ones next to the

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blue ones it can be very easy to to pick the wrong ones you know try

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and put a different product in between them a little bit of a tip

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and don't put all the very fast movers together

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because you'll create congestion around the picking

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if you've got a more complicated product range

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and a more complex warehouse operation then what you want to do is to have a look at slotting

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so the simple thing is just to understand your ABCs

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but then you might want to go through a slotting exercise

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and I've mentioned this a few times on the channel what

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is slotting it's basically a little bit like putting food it in your fridge

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so if you can imagine this is the prime real estate down near the dispatch the inbound

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and the dispatch we want to keep our fast movers here

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and if you think about what's in your fridge what's in the door of your fridge

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if i looked in the door of my fridge it's going to be milk butter eggs things

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that i go to frequently that's exactly what you should be

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doing in your warehouse the frequently picked items should be closer to the inbound

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and outbound the less used items i was going to say

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that half finished in a baked beans

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or whatever is down the back the things

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that you don't don't go to very often down the back

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and also high up

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so this this is a slower area to get to we

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want to be down the back for the slow ones

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or up high for the slow ones

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because we have to think in travel terms not just of horizontal

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but vertical as well so we're trying to minimize travel distance a key one

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and then we also want to be trying to minimize congestion

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and how do we do

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that I see a lot of warehouses where they don't have enough operating areas near the inbound

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and outbound you know they try to cram in this happens

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particularly with smaller warehouse they try to cram in as much capacity as possible

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and there isn't enough working area

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so we've got product coming in here we've got to lay

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it down for checking before we're putting it away we've got

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product here awaiting waiting to go out waiting loading we've got to lay

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that down and have that all that checked we need space to do that

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very very roughly if you want a rule of thumb if we've got a 10 000 square meter warehouse

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and this is very rough how much of that area should be operating space probably 25 to 30

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in any warehouse so it gives you an idea and while we're talking about capacity

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let me just mention another sort of rule of thumb which is really important and that is how much to put in.

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how full is your warehouse when it's actually full so

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if we use this 10 000 example again imagine you've got

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10 000 pallet positions in the warehouse how many pallets can you store

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is it 10 000 no it's not we generally work on

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for normal pallet racking adjustable pallet racking single deep you would

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work on maybe 85 percent utilization of slots pallet slots

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so your 10 000 pallet slots will actually give you about eight and a half, maybe 9 ,000 pallet locations.

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Why?

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Think of it a little bit like a multi -story car park, a very busy multi -story car park.

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We've got 10 ,000 car spaces.

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Imagine you're going to the airport or something and trying to find a parking spot.

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If there's 10 ,000 cars in there, it's gridlocked.

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You can't move.

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It's exactly the same with a warehouse.

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You've got to have gaps for people to be moving in and out.

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You've got to be taking product from you know longer term storage down to replenishment for picking

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you need space to move around just like in a car park

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so you can't really have a hundred percent full just as

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a matter of interest maybe comment down below what's the maximum

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capacity you have ever seen in a warehouse the maximum capacity utilization i've seen 110 percent

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so coming back to our 10 000 pallet example how does

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that work how do you get 11 000 pallets in a

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10 000 pallet slot warehouse well they were storing down the aisles i bet lots of you watching have seen

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that oh we've just had an inbound shipment

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and it you know the aisles are chocker block we're waiting to put it away

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that is it's a bit like going shopping in your supermarket you know

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and all the replenishers are in there with trolleys restacking the shelves and you're trying to do you're shopping.

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It's exactly the same in a warehouse.

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So that brings us on to a point, you know, in terms of congestion about shift patterns and things like that.

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Make sure that you're not falling over each other.

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And that's an absolute classic one.

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So there we go.

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I'll just mention that in terms of congestion.

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One last one, a very simple little graph here.

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Let's say you're working Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.

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Have a look at the, it's a good tip to ease your labour costs, have a look at the number of orders being dispatched by day.

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So for example, you might have Monday's a busy day

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and then it eases off and then Wednesday's quiet and Thursday gets a bit busier and Friday's really busy before the weekend.

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That's always an opportunity as well to reduce costs in a warehouse.

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Have a look at how you can smooth that out and of course the same happens for inbound and outbound.

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Look at your inbound movements, look at your outbound movements and see if there's some way of smoothing

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that the last thing I wanted to mention was KPIs

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because people are always asking you about KPIs for their warehouse do comment down below your favorite warehouse KPIs but

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if you wanted me to give give you some off the

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top of my head I would say pick rates pick rates per hour either you know individual

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or lines per hour actual picks per hour

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or lines per hour is a classic one you need to be able to monitor productivity of your pickers.

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I would have a look at cost per order throughput or cost per line throughput.

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I would have a look at some sort of utilisation of capacity and I would have a look at some accuracy figures,

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either picking accuracy or inventory accuracy, really, really important.

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So four KPIs there.

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Okay, so there we go.

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Some quick tips on warehousing.

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these are very common issues that we see when we're doing warehouse audits for our clients

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some of them are relatively easy to fix i mean i could talk about another 10

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but these are the really common ones

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that you should be able to fix yourself

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and remember always start with the end in mind what are

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you trying to achieve in terms of cost in terms of service enhancing safety and then work back from that.

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Thanks for watching.

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See you next time.

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The Scenario: Solving Warehouse Challenges

The video dives into common warehouse problems, like limited capacity, and practical fixes—all while explaining key goals: cost - effectiveness, customer service, and safety. The speaker uses casual, conversational language, making it easy to follow as they discuss inventory issues, aisle widths, and real - world solutions. This dialogue is perfect for IELTS speaking practice because it combines technical terms with everyday speech, mirroring the kind of topic - based conversations you might encounter in exams or professional settings.

Useful Chunks & Collocations

"Run out of warehouse space": A common phrase for describing capacity issues. Example: "Many small businesses run out of warehouse space during peak seasons."
"Slow, obsolete, and excess stock": A key collocation for inventory management. Remember it as "SLOBs" (slow, obsolete, excess) to make it stick.
"Narrow those aisles": A practical action phrase. Use it when talking about space optimization: "To fit more pallets, we might need to narrow those aisles."
"End up in warehouses": Describes unexpected items stored. Example: "Old office furniture often ends up in warehouses, taking up valuable space."

Your Shadowing Challenge

Practice the shadowing technique with the video’s first 2 minutes. Here’s how: Play a 5 - second clip, pause, and repeat it aloud, mimicking the speaker’s tone, speed, and pronunciation. Focus on phrases like "We’re not going to be going through everything" and "Have you looked at the inventory?" This helps improve English pronunciation and fluency—key for shadow speech practice. Do this 3 times, then try a 10 - second clip. Notice how the speaker stresses words like "safety" and "cost - effective" to emphasize priorities. This exercise builds the muscle memory needed for natural, confident speaking, whether for IELTS speaking practice or daily conversations. Keep going—consistency with shadowspeaks techniques will make a big difference!

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	I've worked · i've seen · has changed
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	be cost · are faced · be amazed

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: 7 Common Warehouse Problems and How to Fix Them - Learn English Speaking with Video

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