How To Build A Warehouse That Lasts

Julie Starr • July 14, 2022



The warehouse industry is growing rapidly, and more businesses move services online. The nature of physical capital is changing and moving away from city centers to regional distribution hubs close to highways.  Because of this, an increasing number of businesses are having to plan warehouse construction directly. It is becoming a mission-critical aspect of their enterprise, vital for distributing goods to their global markets.  Building a sustainable warehouse, though, is challenging. Not all companies get it right.  Fortunately, this post is here to help. Here, we run through some of the things you’ll need to consider when building a warehouse to stand the test of time. This way, you can reduce your impact on the environment.

 

B uild The Warehouse To Be Moisture-Resistant

Warehouse moisture management works a little differently from regular buildings. Many buildings with steel construction can become condensation magnets, particularly when the outside temperature differs from the inside temperature.  Moisture is a problem because it can lead to rot, food spoilage, and issues with product quality control. Because of this, all warehouses should invest in moisture-resistance technology. 

 

Make Sure That Your Warehouse Is Termite Resistant

Termites can cause irreparable damage to warehouses, forcing you to rebuild them from scratch. That’s why it is so important to build them from the best materials, such as Butler building parts . Ideally, you want the outer shell of your warehouse to be impenetrable to pests. Concrete, steel, and aluminum should form the outer layer of the building, protecting more delicate and sensitive materials inside. 

 

Make Your Warehouse More Energy Efficient

In addition, you’ll want to construct your warehouse to be more energy efficient. This way, it won’t cost you a fortune to maintain over the long run.  For instance, use continuous insulation technology on the walls, floors, and roofs. Invest in LED lights. And if you can, increase the thermal mass of your building to store more energy when temperatures fall.  


But it’s also worth thinking about heating solutions that don’t require long-term investment right away. For example, a commercial heating system rental can be a smart option if you need a powerful but temporary heating setup during colder months or during construction. But of course, it’s best if there’s extremely cold temperatures. Besides, you from overcommitting before you know your long-term needs.

 

Prioritize Indoor Air Quality 

You can’t do much to improve exterior air quality, but you can improve the indoor air quality of your warehouse. There are two tools you should use to achieve this: dehumidifiers and air filters.  Your warehouse’s HVAC should provide both. But if it doesn’t, you can install separate systems according to your needs.  Particle filtration is critical for worker health and ensures that poor air quality does not damage goods. Dehumidification is important for preventing mold growth and keeping your facilities as hygienic as possible. 

 

Make Your Warehouse Flood Resistant

Ideally, you should build your warehouse on elevated land. But if that’s not an option for you, focus on ways to make it more flood resistant, particularly if you are in an at-risk zone.  Ultimately, your building should have the ability to drain water in two directions. Your walls and flooring should also have enough strength to maintain their shape and original dimensions after a flood. Warehouses should also be able to limit the spread of fire with smoke barriers and fire partitions. Physical fire protection should be a priority. Warehouses should not collapse after a fire.

Smart Sensors, Smarter Supply Chains: Enhancing Traceability in Food & Beverage

By Julie Starr • June 20, 2025
In today’s competitive food and beverage (F&B) landscape, traceability is no longer a compliance checkbox—it’s a differentiator. The ability to track every step of a product’s journey, from origin to shelf, is vital for regulatory accuracy and to ensure brand integrity, supply chain agility, and consumer trust. Add smart sensors to the mix: the quiet, tireless observers revolutionizing supply chain intelligence. Traceability Has a Data Problem Despite digitization across many F&B operations, most traceability systems still rely on fragmented or manual data inputs. Batch numbers, barcodes, and handwritten logs often stand between a supplier and clarity when things go wrong. This approach struggles with latency and scale. When contamination or delays occur, root cause analysis is slow, costly, and damaging. Smart sensors shift this paradigm by embedding real-time, contextual intelligence into every stage of the supply chain . Whether monitoring humidity in transit or recording fill-level precision in bottling plants, they remove the guesswork by turning physical conditions into structured, time-stamped data. From Passive Monitoring to Active Optimization Sensors used to be reactive tools, alerting operators to anomalies. But smart sensors now play a proactive role in process control. They measure, and they interpret. For example, temperature sensors embedded in cold chain logistics can dynamically adjust cooling systems or flag threshold breaches before spoilage occurs. These advancements reduce waste and loss at a systemic level. In a production facility, smart sensors integrated with PLCs can enforce recipe compliance, verify clean-in-place processes, and detect micro-stoppages in real-time. This enables operations to pivot faster and isolate inefficiencies before they cascade downstream. Trust is Built on Transparency Consumers are paying more attention to what they eat and drink. They’re looking beyond labels, expecting visibility into how ingredients are sourced, processed, and handled. Smart sensors make this level of transparency achievable —without burdening manufacturers with excessive manual oversight. By capturing metadata throughout production and distribution, these sensors create a digital footprint that’s tamper-resistant and instantly accessible. When this data is integrated with a central platform, brands can respond confidently to audits, recalls, and quality assurance challenges with a level of precision that would be impossible through legacy systems. Intelligence Without Infrastructure Overhaul One common misconception is that adding smart sensors requires a top-down reinvention of supply chain infrastructure. In reality, companies can deploy edge sensors in a modular, scalable way. Many modern solutions offer plug-and-play functionality, allowing for fast integration with existing machinery and MES systems. This is where suppliers like alps-machine.com are reshaping expectations. Rather than pushing proprietary ecosystems, they design sensor-ready equipment with interoperability in mind. This future-proofs investment and keeps businesses nimble in the face of regulatory or market shifts. Designing for Data Longevity Sensors are only as powerful as the context they capture. A smart implementation ensures the data collected can be standardized, stored securely, and accessed meaningfully across departments. This means moving beyond local dashboards toward centralized, queryable datasets that inform everything from supplier contracts to marketing claims. As AI and predictive analytics become more accessible, these data-rich environments will unlock new capabilities—such as predicting demand spikes based on real-time freshness indicators or adjusting production schedules dynamically based on in-transit sensor feedback. Final Thoughts: Smarter Isn’t Optional Traceability isn’t solved by more paperwork—it’s solved by embedded intelligence. Smart sensors don’t just help businesses know what happened; they help prevent the wrong things from happening at all. For companies in the food and beverage sector, adopting smart sensors is less about chasing innovation and more about enabling resilience, speed, and confidence in every decision.

Eco-Friendly Garden Prep: Summer Tips for a Greener Business Space

By Julie Starr • June 5, 2025
If you're lucky enough to have a garden as part of your business, taking some time to set it up for summer is a great investment of your energy. Not only will it be ready for your customers to spend time in, but you can also incorporate some eco-friendly elements into it. Many people just think about the property and what eco-friendly updates they can make , but there are plenty that you can implement in your garden. This gives you the best of both worlds. You own a sacred and beautiful place for your customers to spend their summer, and at the same time, you can do your part for a better planet. If this is the route you want to take, then you also need to consider how to do this with the different seasons. To help you on your journey, here are some top tips for preparing your garden for summer. Plant trees and flowers Planting trees and flowers in your garden is a must. It will make a beautiful scene of nature for everyone to enjoy. Trees will provide people and animals with shade, as well as provide a habitat for wildlife. More trees are needed in the world because they purify the air that we breathe. Flowers, especially if you plant with pollinators in mind, can be an excellent way to attract bees and butterflies, which contribute largely to the earth. Use natural pest control When preparing your garden for summer, you can do this more sustainably and kindly by using natural pest control. Simply by planting trees and flowers, you are likely to attract lots of different wildlife, some of which may destroy your efforts. While all wildlife should be considered, you may need to take measures. Some better and more eco-friendly ways you can do this, as opposed to spraying toxic chemicals onto your plants and into the air, you can implement companion planting, using protective nets over your crops, choosing resilient plants, using natural repellents, and encouraging natural predators so nature can do its thing. Maintain your garden Maintaining your garden in itself can make it more eco-friendly. Composting your garden waste regularly, and kitchen waste can help you to reduce overall waste and create nutrient-rich soil. This is a great cycle of sustainability. You can also keep on top of things that need cleaning and replacing, so you can recycle the materials for other garden structures and projects, and repurpose things around your garden before they become waste. If you have features in your garden like a swimming pool, then a regular pool maintenance service is going to be vital in keeping your water consumption to a minimum, as when it is cleaned and maintained, it will need to be drained and refilled less as well as using less energy. You could also consider how you can use natural purification methods to reduce chemical usage and support biodiversity right in your backyard. Your garden is just an eco-friendly project waiting to be built. Use these top tips to help you get started.