Warehouse Maintenance: Best Practices for a Safer, More Efficient Operation

It often starts with a weird noise. One minute, the conveyor belt is humming along. The next, there’s a grinding sound, a sudden lurch, and then everything stops.

Orders back up, workers scramble, and your team gets an “urgent” call. All because of one worn-out roller that hadn’t been checked in weeks.

This is exactly the kind of problem you can avoid with effective warehouse maintenance.

Warehouse maintenance is the process of inspecting, servicing, and repairing physical assets, infrastructure, and equipment in a warehouse to ensure safe and efficient operations.

Warehouse maintenance might not be glamorous, but it’s critical for safe and efficient operations. Proactively maintaining equipment and infrastructure helps you foresee risks and address them proactively, helping avoid safety hazards and minimize downtime.

This piece walks through the most common challenges you might face when it comes to warehouse maintenance. We’ll discuss the best practices, checklists, and tech tools that can make your warehouse maintenance easier.

Key Takeaways

• Warehouse maintenance is crucial for safety, efficiency, and cost control. Not taking a proactive approach leads to equipment failures, downtime, and compliance risks.
• Best practices include proactive maintenance strategies, such as preventive maintenance and regular inspections, and the use of technology to make proactive maintenance easier to manage.
• A CMMS can simplify maintenance with capabilities like automated scheduling, real-time work order tracking, and built-in communication.
• Implementing standardized work order management creates accountability and provides valuable data for optimizing your maintenance program and preventing recurring issues.

Key challenges in warehouse maintenance

Let’s take a look at three common warehouse maintenance challenges and the best way to tackle them:

Equipment wear and tear

The constant movement of forklifts, conveyor belts, pallet jacks, and HVAC systems leads to wear and tear.

This slow degradation nudges equipment toward failure over time. Unless you make a proactive effort to prevent failure, you risk expensive breakdowns or even safety hazards.

The good news is that equipment failure rarely happens without warning signs. Your maintenance team can identify developing problems long before failure occurs with condition-based monitoring that tracks vibrations, unusual sounds, fluid leaks, temperature changes, and other performance indicators. This enables timely intervention and prevents downtime.

Scheduling and managing preventive maintenance

As a maintenance manager with a backlog, you'll benefit from implementing structured tracking systems. Relying solely on spreadsheets or memory alone can make it challenging to prioritize work orders and meet important maintenance deadlines.

Fortunately, a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) can help run your maintenance program like clockwork by allowing your team to easily create work orders, communicate with technicians, and track progress.

There’s no need to manually follow up or worry about forgetting a work order. The CMMS alerts your technicians whenever a work order is due or overdue.

Once a technician marks a task as complete, the CMMS notifies you and stores the data collected while performing the work order, creating an audit trail you can use later to comply with regulations or troubleshoot other issues with the equipment.

Safety risks and compliance issues

Warehouses and distribution centers contain potential safety hazards like overloaded shelving units, cluttered walkways, and malfunctioning equipment.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations protect warehouse workers against these risks, but they also add a layer of complexity to your warehouse operations.

Regulatory frameworks mandate maintaining updated safety equipment, documented inspections, and timely routine maintenance. While an effective maintenance program facilitates compliance, the administrative burden of work order management and documentation can introduce complexity to your operations.

That’s why using a CMMS is valuable; it prevents mishaps in maintenance execution and reduces safety risks and compliance issues.

Best practices for effective warehouse maintenance

Best practices are about staying one step ahead. The goal? To reduce downtime, improve safety, and increase asset lifespan.

Here are some warehouse maintenance best practices that can help you build a more efficient and compliant operation:

Implement a preventive maintenance plan

Schedule routine tasks like lubrication, part replacements, and safety checks based on usage hours or manufacturer recommendations.

This helps you catch issues early, reduces unexpected downtime, and improves the asset’s useful life.

For example, schedule regular filter changes for your HVAC system if you use one in your warehouse to prevent overheating and airflow issues. Similarly, check forklift hydraulics after a specific number of operating hours to avoid sudden failures that disrupt operations.

These are just examples. When structuring your preventive maintenance plan, consider:

• Manufacturer recommendations: See if the manufacturer has provided guidelines on the best way to maintain warehouse equipment.
• Historical failure data: Look at historical data to find common culprits that lead to a failure event.
• Usage patterns: The more heavily you use a piece of equipment, the more frequently it needs maintenance.

Conduct regular inspections and audits

Use regular maintenance inspections as your first line of defense against bigger problems.

Regular checks, such as verifying the integrity of racking systems, inspecting forklifts for wear, and checking electrical systems, can help you discover hazards before they become bigger problems.

For example, if you notice damaged pallet racks during a weekly walkthrough, you can take corrective action to maintain structural integrity and preserve a safe working environment.

Audits go a step further. They assess how well your maintenance program complies with regulatory requirements, such as OSHA, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), and ISO standards.

Don’t forget to document your audit for internal performance and passing third-party inspections.

For example, if you run an audit to review fire extinguisher placements, emergency lighting, and lockout tagout procedures, make sure the details are documented and stored in your CMMS.

Standardize work order management and reporting

Things fall through the cracks when work order requests come through phone calls and word-of-mouth.

A standardized system ensures that all work orders are logged, prioritized, assigned, and tracked through completion. This approach helps support operational efficiency.

Suppose a forklift battery isn’t charging properly. With a standardized digital work order system, this is what the process might look like:

• Your technician logs the issue.
• They assign a priority level and wait to receive instructions.
• When instructions are ready, they perform the maintenance task.
• The task is marked complete after work is done.

While this process is executed, the CMMS continues to log all activities. You can use this data to improve accountability, evaluate performance, optimize your preventive maintenance program, and prevent issues from reoccurring. 

How technology takes warehouse maintenance to the next level

Technology has made warehouse maintenance far easier than just a few years ago.

You can now use sensors to monitor asset health in real time, collect data in a cloud-based system, and auto-generate reports that help make data-driven decisions.

Time savings aren’t the only benefit of warehouse maintenance technology. Let’s look at other ways it helps with warehouse maintenance.

Benefits of digital maintenance management systems

Digital maintenance management systems organize data and automate processes. Here are some benefits of using them:

• Centralized data: Asset history, work orders, inspection logs, and schedules are available in one place, eliminating the need for paper trails or scattered spreadsheets.
• Automated scheduling: Schedule maintenance tasks like equipment checks or filter changes and receive alerts when they’re due or overdue.
• Work order tracking: A CMMS lets you digitally assign tasks to a specific team member and track real-time progress.
• Improved communication: Top maintenance systems offer a built-in chat feature that allows everyone to stay in the loop. Everyone, from maintenance techs to supervisors, can interact with each other.
• Mobile access: Mobile-friendly CMMS platforms allow your technicians to update work orders, communicate with a supervisor, and access maintenance data while they’re on the warehouse floor via their mobile phones. This saves time that would otherwise be spent going back to the desk to access data or update work orders.
• Automated reporting: A CMMS makes it easy to pull data for audits, performance reviews, or cost analysis without manually digging through large datasets. This gives you the data to streamline decision making.

Real-time visibility and asset tracking

A CMMS tells you exactly where assets are, their condition, and what maintenance is due at any given time.

Suppose you want to monitor the conveyor motor for abnormal behavior so you can intervene before it fails. Current technology requires a combination of hardware and software to accomplish this.

You mount a vibration sensor on a conveyor motor. The sensor collects and transmits data to your CMMS, which monitors it in real time.

Whenever a predefined vibration threshold is breached, the CMMS alerts your team and automatically generates a work order so a technician can jump in before a disruption occurs.

This real-time visibility allows you to reduce downtime, minimize costs, and take a proactive approach to warehouse maintenance.

Data-driven decision-making for repairs and replacements

A CMMS gives maintenance managers concrete data to make a smarter choice between repair and replacement.

Instead of guessing, you analyze historical trends, performance metrics, and maintenance costs to make a more cost-effective decision.

Say you’ve repaired your oldest forklift five times in six months. According to data pulled from the CMMS, the cost of parts and downtime has now exceeded the cost of a new model.

The obvious choice? Replace the forklift. But it’s much easier to make this decision with reliable, easily accessible data (versus having to dig through a filing cabinet of paper records).

That’s why a CMMS is a valuable asset. A digital system’s ability to collect and compile data and present it visually makes it easier for you to make a data-driven decision and improve profitability.

Warehouse maintenance checklist: What to include

A warehouse maintenance checklist makes it easier to track maintenance progress. If you’re creating a checklist for warehouse maintenance, be sure to include the following:

Daily, weekly, and monthly maintenance tasks

Break down tasks by frequency to make the maintenance program less overwhelming for your team. While the specific list of tasks depends on the type of equipment in your warehouse and internal processes, here are examples of what your checklist of recurring tasks might look like:

• Daily tasks
  
  • Check forklift batteries and tires for wear or damage
  • Inspect loading dock doors and levelers for smooth operation
  • Verify all safety signage is visible and intact
• Weekly tasks
  
  • Test emergency exits, lights, and alarms
  • Inspect conveyor belts for alignment and signs of wear
  • Lubricate moving parts on pallet jacks and dock equipment
• Monthly tasks
  
  • Review HVAC filters and replace if needed
  • Calibrate scales and automated packing machines
  • Conduct a walkthrough to spot racking damage, corrosion, or pest activity

Safety and compliance inspection points

Inspecting critical safety and compliance points helps prevent hazards and avoid penalties.

The specific points you must inspect depend on your industry, applicable regulations, and equipment, but here’s a generic example checklist:

• Fire safety equipment: Are extinguishers charged and properly mounted? Is the fire suppression system functional?
• Lockout tagout compliance: Are procedures documented and visible near all applicable machinery?
• PPE availability: Are gloves, goggles, and vests stocked and being used correctly?
• Aisle clearance: Are walkways and emergency exits unobstructed?
• Load limits and rack stability: Are weight limits clearly labeled and followed?

Improve warehouse safety and efficiency with smarter maintenance

Warehouse maintenance ensures safety, improves equipment reliability, and keeps costs under control. Unfortunately, old-school tools don’t offer the capabilities needed in a modern warehouse environment.

That’s where a CMMS comes in. It helps organize work orders, track asset history, and automate your maintenance schedule.

With tools like MaintainX, you can build maintenance checklists (or start with a template), track work order progress, and communicate with your team to resolve queries in real time. As your team checks those boxes, MaintainX creates an audit trail and documentation that you can use to meet regulatory requirements.

If you’re looking for a tool to simplify warehouse maintenance, try MaintainX for free.