I don’t have a well-defined definition for large. There is no regulation or guidance that will clearly define the correlation between the size of a storage area, and the resulting sensor densities required for mapping. The ISPE did it for small chambers, but their guidance doesn’t cover spaces over 20 cubic meters total volume, so that doesn’t help us with warehouses.

But just for fun, let’s unpack this concept. Maybe, we should drop the word “warehouse” here, because that already implies a large size space. Let’s just call them “storage areas”, which is what WHO calls them in the title of Supplement 8. Technically, we could call a warehouse a large storage area that is dedicated to managing incoming and outgoing goods. If the WHO basic guidance is telling us to place our sensors stacks 5-10 meters apart, then maybe we can guess the starting size for applying this guidance? Our smallest size area, with three stacks of sensors down each side, at 5m apart, would give us a space that was 10m on a side, or 100 square meters. Maybe we could call this a SMALL storage area?

Let’s say we have a space that is big enough to move our sensors stack to 10 m apart, and we have 4 stacks down each side… Now we have a space that is 30m on each side, or 900 square meters. Maybe we could call this MEDIUM storage area?

As I hope you can tell, I am just trying to extrapolate from the little information we have. In other words, I am making it up with some informed guesses. There are no exact numbers in any of this, as we don't get this information detailed for us in the guidance. I think the best we can do is apply a standard of reasonable confidence. Reason is logic. So all mappers should ask themselves, at what density of sensors will it be logical for me to have confidence that I am collecting data with enough resolution to understand the temperature dynamics of the warehouse space?

I am sort of saying that it might not be worth it to worry about whether your warehouse is large or small. Just ask yourself if sensors placed 10m apart will accurately represent the space being mapped? Are you confident you won’t miss a hot spot? If your answer is yes, move the sensors to 15m apart and ask yourself the same question. Repeat until you find that point of logical confidence.

Also, there are some logistics of warehouse mapping to be considered. Mapping sensors need to be attached to something, and usually it is racks and support columns. Your choices of sensor location will often simply be predicated by the location of the existing racks and columns. So you simply pick a density of sensors that aligns with the available areas (racks and columns) to place sensors.

And don’t worry about getting it wrong. Auditors would rather see a mapping that can be improved, than see no mapping at all.