Warehousing

Warehousing comes in many shapes and sizes:

1. Private Warehouse - privately owned by wholesalers, distributors, or manufacturers.
2. Public Warehouse - owned by governmental bodies and made available to private sector companies as compared to different types of warehouses.
3. Bonded Warehouse - can store imported goods before customs duties are required to be paid on them. 
4. Co-Operative Warehouse - owned by a co-operative where private firms can rent space for storage.
5. Distribution Center - a storage space that is usually built with specific requirements in mind.
6. Smart Warehouse - storage, fulfillment process, and management are automated with AI. 
7. Consolidated Warehouse - takes small shipments from different suppliers and groups them together into larger shipments before distributing them to buyers.
8. 3PL Warehouse - A third-party logistics warehouse, or 3PL for short, is an outsourced business that takes care of a company's supply chain and logistics operations. 

A warehouse management system (WMS) is a software solution that offers visibility into a business' entire inventory and manages supply chain fulfillment operations from the distribution center to the store shelf.