How to use When to use For whom Planning pitfalls Reaching deadlines

FREE Warehouse Project Management Template

Master warehouse project management timelines with our intuitive warehouse project management Gantt chart template.

Start with template
Gantt chart template

Why use our Warehouse Project Management Template instead of Excel or Google Sheets?

Get started with our Warehouse Project Management Template in seconds while skipping the hassle involved with Excel or Google Sheets.

Build Gantt charts in minutes, not hours.

Build Gantt charts in minutes, not hours.

No project management experience? No problem. Tom's Planner offers a user-friendly, drag-and-drop interface that's intuitive and easy to learn. Creating Gantt charts is a breeze, saving you time and effort. Compare that to the time-consuming, frustrating, manual formatting-intensive process of building a Gantt chart in Excel or Google Sheets.

Create a Gantt chart in minutes, not hours

Move at the pace of modern business with no learning curve or Googling formulas.

Good luck figuring out how to make a Gantt chart work in Excel or Google Sheets. Excel’s user manual weighs in at a hefty 500+ pages. It takes just five minutes with Tom’s Planner to start planning your first real project plan.

Create a Gantt chart in minutes, not hours

Headache-free collaboration and sharing.

Tom's Planner offers powerful options for sharing and collaborating on Gantt charts, including public links, PDF exports, and team access with customizable permission levels. It’s never been easier to communicate or ensure everyone’s on the same page. Compare that to Excel, where sharing and collaboration mean jumping through hoop after hoop and dealing with confusion and chaos.

How to use Tom’s Planner’s warehouse project management template to build and share your warehouse management project.

Getting your project off the ground is as easy as 1-2-3.

Step #1

Click the 'start with template’ button to open the Warehouse Project Management Template.

Step #2

Register for a free account and watch a short video on using Tom’s Planner. The account is free forever, with no strings attached.

Step #3

You’re all set to use the Gantt chart template. Need additional help? Our AI assistant can create a custom Gantt chart Warehouse Project Management Template based on your project description.

Start with template

What is a warehouse project management template?

Warehouses play a central role in the distribution of goods across the nation and around the world. Businesses in all industries use them to house merchandise and supplies and to help reduce shipping times. However, designing and building warehouses is not without its challenges.

Optimizing your strategy

These spaces must be carefully laid out to ensure they function properly. The sites must be accessible, the surrounding area safe, and robust infrastructure in place to ensure that goods can enter and exit seamlessly. Failure to do so could mean increased costs, decreased usability, and even legal issues down the road.

A warehouse project management template helps you avoid potential negative outcomes. By using a warehouse project management Gantt chart template, it’s possible to accurately plan a project that results in a space that fits your company’s needs now and, in the future, that supports the smooth flow of merchandise or supplies, and that doesn’t incur legal issues.

Planning for success

Using a warehouse project management template can offer some pretty important benefits. For instance, a Gantt chart allows you to create a clear path to follow for warehouse construction, from the initial site analysis through the final walkthrough. It provides clarity on your goals and objectives while designating the project’s scope, as well. Using a warehouse project management template also helps you define your project timeline, set an accurate budget, and enhance collaboration and communication between team members and stakeholders. With a warehouse project management Gantt chart, you can:

  • Track materials inventory and allocation
  • Manage subcontractors and collect contact information and assigned tasks
  • Track expenses against a projected schedule of values
  • Track work completed (as a percentage)
  • Track worked hours versus planned hours
  • Manage milestones and payments
  • Track task duration versus predicted
  • Link between sequential and related activities

A warehouse project management template allows you to focus on improving efficiency and ensuring that everyone involved can stay on task. That makes it easier to ensure that the project concludes successfully, on time, and budget.

When to use a warehouse project management template

Ideally, any warehouse project should use a project management template. This applies to new warehouse construction, but also to expanding existing facilities, retrofitting warehouses already in operation, and more.

Planning Phase:

A warehouse project management template helps you outline the entire project long before it begins. This ensures accuracy in planning and clarity regarding task sequences and resources required.

Bidding Process:

Depending on the project’s scope, you may need to hire one or more contractors. This template helps contractors submit job bids and allows them to highlight their competencies and ability to complete the work within the project’s scope.

Cost Management:

It’s all too easy for project costs to skyrocket. Using a template allows you to forecast costs, materials, resources, and other factors, and then make informed decisions that help you stick to your initial budget.

Because a warehouse project management template is incredibly flexible and scalable, you can use it to help encourage visibility, accountability, and success no matter the size or scope of the project in question.

Who should use a warehouse project management template?

Warehouse planning tools are primarily used by project managers, general contractors, and construction companies.

Project Managers:

Your warehouse project manager will be responsible for handling the entire project and must oversee both all those involved and all stages of the project.

General Contractors:

In larger-scale projects, you’ll likely have a general contractor who is responsible for managing crews and subcontractors, scheduling work, and more.

Subcontractors:

Most projects will require a range of subcontractors, from electricians and plumbers to carpenters and flooring specialists.

The information contained within a warehouse setup project plan is vital for all individuals. You must map out all stakeholders from the very beginning so that they can be included in the conversation.

Start with template

The top three pitfalls to avoid when planning a warehouse project

You want to ensure your warehouse project is successful. Avoiding these three pitfalls will help immensely.

  1. Failing to plan correctly:

    A well-planned project is a successful project. Failure to plan can result in a range of problems, including insufficient materials, costs overruns, scheduling conflicts, and communication issues between stakeholders.

    Solution:

    Use a tool like Tom’s Planner to create a detailed plan, break projects into tasks, track resources, and more.

  2. Failing to consider the environmental impact of the project:

    Increasingly, businesses are being held accountable for the environmental impacts of their actions.

    Solution:

    Plan accordingly. This includes everything from how to handle stormwater runoff to the displacement of local flora and fauna.

  3. Failing to consider future needs:

    Your business will evolve, and so will the demands on the warehouse. Failing to consider those changes could mean costly retrofits in the near future.

    Solution:

    It’s important to have an accurate view of how that evolution will occur so that your warehouse equipment and even the interior layout can change along with business and customer needs. Make sure to add these to your warehouse setup checklist.

What does a warehouse project management template include?

While each warehouse development project is unique, they tend to share some commonalities. That’s because, at the heart, warehouses are all about the same thing: providing ample storage space and making merchandise easy to move in and out. Yes, there are specific considerations by industry or even product type. You might need refrigeration, physical security, or humidity control, depending on what’s being stored. Still, warehouse project plans share quite a few commonalities, including the following:

  1. Project scope

    First, you must define the project’s scope. How large will the warehouse be? What about the surrounding site? What features will you need for accessibility? What about compliance with federal, state, and local ordinances? What’s the ultimate purpose of your project? What objectives are you hoping to achieve?

  2. Feasibility study

    Your warehouse project management template should include information about your feasibility study. Ideally, you’ll be able to link to it from a digital template. This study determines the potential costs, benefits, and risks of the project and helps stakeholders determine the size, layout, staffing needs, and other factors. A warehouse project management Gantt chart template helps create a visual map of these elements, along with their interdependencies.

  3. Project plan

    The bulk of your warehouse project management template will be taken up by the project plan. This is a detailed breakdown of the project, its objectives and goals, and how you intend to achieve them. The project plan should be written to provide information for several different audiences, including the contractor/construction company building the warehouse, any team members working on the construction portion of the project, team members who will work within the warehouse after construction, and stakeholders in the project, including company executives, lenders, and insurers.

  4. Project timeline

    Your warehouse project management template must include an accurate, detailed timeline. This should highlight the entire process, from initial ideation and planning to the site analysis, groundbreaking, key milestones in the construction process, and final walkthrough. Note that the milestones listed will be important to different audience members and may denote points where funds are dispersed, where other infrastructure must be built, when equipment can be installed, when insurers must begin providing coverage, and much more.

Four tips on how to make sure you reach your deadlines

If your warehouse project isn’t completed on time, it could lead to overspending and a loss of revenue. Here are three tips to help ensure you reach those deadlines.

1. Improve your warehouse project plan by including all stakeholders from the beginning

One of the most common reasons for warehouse projects to stall is a lack of support from key stakeholders. If insurers aren’t in the loop on permitting, if equipment suppliers aren’t ready to ship shelves and other equipment on time, or if warehouse staff aren’t trained and ready to go when development wraps up, it could mean major problems. Keep all stakeholders involved in communications around the project from day one.

2. Start planning long before the project starts

To conclude the project successfully, you’ll need to begin planning well in advance. A Gantt chart helps you strategically plan critical aspects of your project, such as stakeholders, resources required and their allocation, the overall timeline, tasks assigned and their dependencies, and so much more. Tom’s Planner is an ideal tool to ensure that your warehouse project goes off without a hitch.

3. Focus on interior design and layout

Too often, companies invest massive amounts of capital into warehouses that ultimately don’t function very well. That’s usually due to a lack of planning when it comes to interior design and layout. Make sure that the space is large enough to support your needs, and then focus on workflow efficiency, worker safety, accessibility, the size of loading/unloading areas, and that there’s room left for future expansion.

4. Communicate effectively with all stakeholders

No project can be successful without accurate, transparent, ongoing communications. Early on, define your stakeholders and create a strategy about when and how you’ll communicate key information with each of them.

Gantt charts in Tom's Planner vs in Excel

Excel Tom's Planner
Cost License required Free version available
Learning curve Hours Minutes
Create your first Gantt chart Hours Minutes
Making an update in your chart Several minutes Seconds (drag & drop)
Sharing charts with others At some point you will save and email a file titled: version_4_def_usethisversion_reallyfinal.xlsx Online, one source of truth, always up to date, with no confusion
Look & Feel Messy Clean, polished and professional
Dependencies
Filtering
Zoom in/out
Automatic Legend
AI-assist Let our AI assist do the work for you
Export to image or pdf Requires workarounds to export One mouse click

Join 117,658 customers and have your first Gantt chart live today!