The pick face is the plan
Work out which lines you genuinely cannot stop picking, and protect them. Everything else in the sequence is arranged around keeping that small set available for as long as possible in the old unit, and available again as early as possible in the new one.
In practice that means the slow movers go first, in bulk, while the fast movers stay put and carry on being picked from a shrinking area.
Racking comes down after the stock, and goes up before it
Which sounds obvious and is routinely got wrong, because racking is usually quoted as an afterthought. It has to be dismantled in a controlled sequence, it travels flat, and it needs rebuilding plumb and braced before anything can be put on it.
The practical consequence is that the new unit needs its racking standing before the bulk of the stock arrives, which means the racking crew and the stock crew are not the same day’s work.
Keep the stock countable
A move is the easiest time in a company’s life to lose stock, and the only real defence is that what leaves is identifiable when it arrives.
- Label to your own stock references, not to the remover’s system.
- Count out and count in at the point of loading and unloading, not afterwards.
- Keep a single person responsible for the count at each end, and do not split that role.
- Do a cycle count on the fast movers as soon as the new pick face is live.
Know the two yards before you commit
Dock or shutter, turning circle, access hours, and who else uses the yard. Those four facts determine the vehicle, the crew size and the shape of the day, and none of them can be established over the phone.
Plan for operating from both units
For part of any warehouse move you will be running two buildings at once. That is not a sign the plan has gone wrong — it is the plan. It needs a decision about where orders are picked from during the overlap, and everybody needs to know the answer.