Warehousing and Consolidation Services

Overview

What warehousing and consolidation does

Warehousing and consolidation is the controlled receipt, holding and regrouping of cargo between the supplier gate and the transport that carries it onward. Consolidation is what makes it a freight service rather than storage: separate consignments become one shipment, one set of documents and one arrival.

We handle commercial and industrial cargo: raw materials, manufactured and finished goods, machinery and industrial equipment, spare parts, packaged production output, and project cargo staged before its onward movement.

Receiving

Receiving and inspection: what happens when cargo arrives

Every consignment is booked in against a document before anything is put away. We tally the pieces against the packing list, read the shipping marks and numbers on each carton and crate, weigh and measure whatever has not been declared, and photograph the cargo as it arrives.

Damage and shortage are recorded at that moment and at no other. A discrepancy noted before the delivery note is signed belongs to the supplier or the carrier; a discrepancy found after put-away belongs to whoever is holding the goods. We record the condition of the outer packing and note every wet, crushed, opened or re-taped package on the receiving report with the photographs attached.

Cargo that fails inspection goes to a marked quarantine area instead of into stock, so that it cannot be picked into an outbound load by mistake.

Storage types

Storage types and which cargo goes into each

Racked pallet storage holds uniform palletised cargo, each pallet in its own addressed location, so that a single pallet can be picked without moving anything else. Block or floor storage stacks heavy, oversized or unpalletised cargo directly on the floor: it costs less for each square metre and takes longer to pick out of. Open yard holds containers, steel, pipe, machinery and out-of-gauge pieces that need no roof over them.

Temperature-controlled rooms hold cargo with a declared range. Segregated and caged areas hold high-value and controlled cargo behind restricted access.

A bonded warehouse is customs-controlled premises where imported goods are held with duty and import tax suspended until the goods are entered for home use or re-exported. Duty-paid storage is the opposite: the goods have already been cleared and are in free circulation.

Storage is billed on the space occupied and the time it is occupied, and both are separate from the handling charged on the way in and the way out.

Consolidation

How consolidation and cross-stuffing actually work

Consolidation groups separate consignments into one outbound load so that the whole moves under one booking. A buyer consolidation collects from several suppliers against one purchase programme: each supplier delivers on its own date, the cargo waits until the order is complete, and the container is stuffed once.

Before anything is lifted we build a load plan from the piece list. Dense and heavy pieces go on the floor, lighter and crushable pieces above them, weight is spread so that the container or trailer stays inside its axle limits, and pieces that must not travel in contact are separated. The plan is what turns a yard full of pallets into a stuffed container that arrives intact.

Cross-stuffing is the direct transfer of cargo from one container or vehicle into another without putting it into storage in between. It is used when an inbound box has to be split between destinations, when the equipment changes because the onward leg runs on a different mode or a different trailer, and when several inbound loads are rebuilt into one outbound load.

Deconsolidation is the reverse: an inbound container is unstuffed, each consignment is separated against its own transport document, and each goes on to its own consignee or its own onward leg.

The work is recorded as it happens, with a piece count into the box, photographs of the load at each stage, and the container and seal numbers written onto the shipping documents.

Stock handling

Stock handling and value-added work

Cargo held in the warehouse is worked on rather than only stored. Each consignment carries its own reference, and stock is reported by reference, piece count and location so that the customer knows what is on the floor without asking for a count.

Repacking and re-palletising rebuild damaged or oversized pallets to the height and footprint the onward mode needs. Relabelling applies shipping marks, destination labels, handling symbols and case numbers. Pick and pack builds part-orders out of held stock against a dispatch instruction. Shrink-wrapping, strapping and corner protection go on before the load leaves.

Export packing crates, cradles and braces the pieces a carton will not protect. Wooden packaging used in international trade is heat-treated and marked under ISPM 15, the international standard for wood packaging material, and unmarked wood is refused at many borders.

Weighing and measuring produce the verified piece list that the onward booking is priced on.

Onward flow

How the warehouse feeds the onward shipment

The warehouse produces the numbers the onward booking runs on. The verified piece list, gross weights and outside dimensions taken on our floor set the chargeable volume of a sea booking, the chargeable weight of an air booking and the loading metres of a road movement.

For a sea shipment the container is positioned at the door, stuffed against the load plan, sealed, and released to the terminal with the seal number on the documents. For a road movement the trailer is loaded in delivery order and the consignment note is signed at the gate. For an air shipment the pieces are palletised, weighed and measured for the air waybill and delivered to the airline terminal ahead of the acceptance cut-off.

Because the same team holds the cargo and books the transport, the piece list on the transport document is the piece list that left the floor.

Locations

Where we hold and consolidate cargo

We hold and consolidate cargo in the United Arab Emirates and in Syria, and we work with contracted facilities elsewhere in the region for cargo that stages closer to its market.

Cargo staged in the UAE for onward carriage continues by sea, by road, or by a combination of the two, and the consolidation decides which. Grouping several small consignments into one full load replaces several small-shipment charges with one.

Get started

What we need to open a storage and consolidation file

Send the number of suppliers and their delivery dates, the commodity, the number and type of packages, the gross weight and outside dimensions, whether the cargo is stackable, any temperature or security requirement, the expected holding period, and the onward destination and mode. From that we assign the storage type, issue the receiving instruction to each supplier, and build the load plan.