A survey of its members by the International Association of Refrigerated Warehouses has resulted in some interesting performance benchmarks. For instance, the average refrigerated warehouse receives and ships a total of 800,000 cases a month. A total of 11.9 million pounds are shipped each month with the average case weighing 31.7 pounds.

More than 90% of survey respondents are addressing ergonomic issues, a huge increase in just five years. Information systems are used by 69% with 54% applying printed labels on inbound pallets. At only 38% of those warehouses do those labels include bar codes.

While the average warehouse is 25 years old, materials handling equipment is much newer. Thirty-five percent report their equipment is less than three years old while 39% say it is between four and seven years old. Approximately 25% of lift trucks are more than 10 years old.