When you operate an industrial business, you need to be sure that you are making the most of every square foot of usable space on your property.

Industrial space can be optimized in so many ways. A comprehensive space audit will allow you to remove congestion, improve efficiency, and help keep operations smooth and seamless. Increasing safety and improving operational performance is easy if you conduct a proper space audit.

What is a Comprehensive Space Audit?

This kind of business audit allows you to thoroughly analyze the potential of your industrial space, identify areas for improvement, and improve your overall space allocation and functionality. This kind of study will help you to identify both under and over-usage and encourage a more streamlined, safe, and enjoyable working environment.

You will also be able to move in new technology if you wish to access the perks of this kind of upgrade while you are optimizing and improving your working spaces. Technology integration is a lot easier if you have the free space to install improvements.

Every business should consider completing a comprehensive space audit before any kind of scaling operation is done, and before adding new machines and technologies.

How Do You Complete a Comprehensive Space Audit?

1. In-Depth Assessment

The first step of a space audit is the comprehensive assessment. During this process, you will identify the total square footage that can be used for work processes, evaluate traffic patterns, look at collaboration needs, check out the individual workspaces as they are currently set up. You will also look at the totality of the operation from start to finish and the accessibility of each and every point of the chain of production to identify bottlenecks and other potential issues that could be improved upon.

2. Data Collection

The data that you have collected from your assessment is converted into spreadsheets and other kinds of visual displays so that the information can be interacted with to make improvements for your business. You will likely also have conducted staff surveys, physical inspections, and other kinds of studies, and these details need to be brought into the data collection process as well. Once the data is collated in a useful way, you can start looking at making improvements to your operations and your use of space.

3. Cost-Saving Potential is Identified

One of the main reasons that most industrial businesses need to consider a comprehensive space audit, are bottlenecks that are slowing down production and leading to lost income each day that operations are going on. You might be amazed to find that there are various areas of your operations that are actually costing you money. Finding areas where you can save money and also improve safety and daily workflows is huge and these are typically a main area of focus for those who are going through this essential audit process.

4. Find Areas Where Productivity Can be Improved

One of the other major reasons that you might have wanted to do an audit of your working spaces is to make sure that workflows are improved upon. Whether you are looking into improvements for safety reasons or simply to speed up the production process and eliminate employee frustrations, this part of the comprehensive space audit can offer big benefits to your company. Often ,cost-saving and safety and productivity savings opportunities go hand-in-hand.

5. Future Planning

One of the main reasons that you might have wanted to go through this audit process is to allow room to scale your business and grow in the future. You will want to make sure that you allow for new areas where you can install new machines or increase the number of workstations that you are currently utilizing to meet increased demand. Being able to reorganize your working areas will allow you to free up space that you can use to make sure that your business thrives in the future.

Benefits of a Comprehensive Space Audit

There are so many benefits of a comprehensive space audit for your business. You will save money, improve safety and productivity and also offer yourself room to grow your business in the future. There are some other benefits that are often overlooked that we should also discuss.

· Increased Inventory Space

Many businesses struggle with inventory, which takes up a lot of free space that could be used for other business functions. If you are tired of tripping over inventory that needs to go out the door on your next shipping date, this can be a good reason to do a space audit.

· Accessibility

If you are concerned about ADA approval and accessibility, you will want to keep an eye on the qualifications and needs of this category of space utilization as you do your audit. This is becoming an increasingly common consideration in industrial workplaces, and you might want to put this need at the top of your list.

· Environmental Considerations

Evaluating the energy efficiency and sustainability of your business is also possible as you look at the free space that you have room to work with. You might need to make room for improved processes that help save the planet or to prevent issues with contamination. Your space audit will allow you to keep things safe and environmentally friendly every day.

A Comprehensive Space Audit Can be a Big Help to Any Business

While it might seem like only large businesses need to do a comprehensive space audit, this is not the case at all. Businesses of any size can benefit from this helpful business evaluation. Let’s face it, most companies are not operating at their full potential due to outdated workflows, issues with shared spaces, and bottlenecks. You can avoid all these pitfalls by conducting a comprehensive space audit and making effective changes to your workflows.