Rapid-Deploy Warehousing: How Fast Can You Store 100 Tonnes of Relief Stock?

A single standard humanitarian Mobile Storage Unit (MSU) gives you 240 m² of floor and roughly 840 m³ of covered space, enough to hold around 100 tonnes of palletised relief stock, and a trained crew can have one standing and weather-tight in a day or two once the cargo and the site are ready. The slow part is almost never the structure. It is getting that structure to Juba, through customs, and down the road to the site before the stock arrives.

How much can one mobile storage unit actually hold?

A standard humanitarian Mobile Storage Unit measures 24 by 10 by 5 metres, giving 240 m² of floor area and approximately 840 m³ of internal volume, which is procured and donated to responses by the WFP-led Logistics Cluster. At typical humanitarian stacking heights and aisle allowances, one MSU comfortably absorbs around 100 tonnes of bagged food, shelter kits, or boxed non-food items; two or three of them, set in a row on the same prepared pad, give you a working dispatch hub rather than a single store.

That is the unit of measurement to plan in. When you size a rapid-deploy warehouse for a response, you are really counting MSUs against incoming tonnage, then deciding how many you need standing before the first truck arrives. SLS sizes and supplies these structures for UN agencies and NGOs the same way, working backwards from the consignment manifest rather than forwards from a catalogue.

Why is prepositioning the real measure of "rapid"?

The fastest warehouse is the one that is already near the emergency. The WFP-managed United Nations Humanitarian Response Depot (UNHRD) network runs five hubs, in Brindisi, Accra, Kuala Lumpur, Panama City and Dubai, precisely so that relief items sit in stock before a crisis rather than being sourced after it. From that prepositioned stock, UNHRD can dispatch relief items within 48 hours of a partner request, a speed that is only possible because the storage and the stock are already in place.

The scale that model moves is significant: in 2022 UNHRD dispatched 945 consignments and 7,863 metric tonnes to 135 countries and territories on behalf of more than 100 partners. The lesson for any country operation is the same one SLS applies in the region: storage capacity is a preparedness asset, not a reactive purchase. A structure you can stand up in days, sited ahead of the rains, is worth far more than a cheaper one that is still on a quay when the caseload spikes.

What is the difference between a warehouse shipped FOB and one deployed in-country?

A structure sold FOB a European port is priced and finished the moment it is loaded; everything after that, the freight, the customs file, the road move, the site preparation, and the erection crew, is the buyer's problem. A warehouse deployed in-country is priced as a standing, usable store on a prepared pad in the country of operation. The headline cost of the first looks lower. The delivered cost, and the delivered timeline, very often favour the second.

This is where South Sudan exposes the gap. The country has roughly 20,000 km of roads, of which only about 400 km are paved, and most rural routes are impassable through the rainy season. A container that clears the port late can sit for months waiting for a road to dry. A structure that is already stocked in-region and moved before the rains is the difference between storing the response and watching it. SLS treats design, in-region stock, last-mile movement, and customs as a single chain across South Sudan, so the date that matters, the date stock can go under cover, is the date we commit to, not the date a structure leaves a port.

How fast can a rapid-deploy warehouse really go up?

Erection is the quick part; the schedule is set by the slow parts around it. Site selection and ground preparation, the customs clearance window, and the road move to the site are what actually govern the timeline, and on a well-prepared pad with cargo and crew in place an MSU-class structure is a matter of days, not weeks. The honest way to quote a deployment is therefore as a chain of dependencies, not a single build figure, because the build is rarely the bottleneck.

That is why SLS quotes the chain end to end rather than just the structure itself. We design to the load and the standard, hold or source stock in-region, run the customs file, move the last mile, and erect with our own crew, then maintain the structure through the season. A generalist vendor that sells you only the steel and the membrane has handed you the four hardest links in the chain and kept the easy one.

How many warehouses should you stand up before the rains?

Plan capacity against your worst-access months, not your average ones. In an environment where rural roads close for a season, the warehouse you fail to stand up before the cut-off is one you cannot use until the roads reopen, which can be months of caseload with stock you cannot store near it. The planning unit is the MSU footprint set against projected inbound tonnage, with a deliberate margin for the consignments you cannot move once access closes.

For multi-site operations, that usually means a small network of stores rather than one central depot: a main hub plus forward stores close to the people being served, each sized in MSU multiples. SLS plans these networks with UN and NGO logistics teams against the seasonal access calendar, so the structures are standing, stocked, and reachable before the rains rather than after them.

What does a rapid-deploy warehouse need to be designed to?

Design a humanitarian warehouse to the load it will carry and the standard the response demands, not to a generic catalogue rating. That means a structure rated for the local wind and snow or rain loads, a floor and pad that take the point loads of stacked pallets and a forklift, and a footprint that matches the MSU planning unit you are sizing against. A store that looks identical on a brochure can be the wrong build once you account for the ground, the climate, and the cargo it has to protect.

This is the layer a generalist vendor rarely closes. SLS designs the structure to the load and the standard, then carries the same logic through procurement, customs, and erection, so the warehouse that arrives is the one the site actually needs. As Hallgruppen's authorised regional distributor, we specify from the manufacturer's range against the regional reality, the lead times, the air-versus-road cost, and the local erection capacity, rather than leaving the buyer to reconcile a port-delivered structure with a South Sudan site on their own. The proof of that approach is in our authorised-distributor status and manufacturer partnerships, which is what lets us stand behind the warranty as well as the warehouse.

Frequently asked questions

How much relief stock fits in a standard mobile storage unit?

A standard humanitarian MSU is 24 by 10 by 5 metres, giving 240 m² of floor and about 840 m³ of volume, per the WFP-led Logistics Cluster; that is enough for roughly 100 tonnes of palletised stock at typical stacking heights.

How quickly can prepositioned relief stock be dispatched in an emergency?

The UNHRD network can dispatch relief items within 48 hours of a partner request, because the stock and storage are prepositioned across its hubs before a crisis rather than sourced after it.

Where are the UNHRD prepositioning hubs?

UNHRD operates five hubs: Brindisi, Accra, Kuala Lumpur, Panama City and Dubai, supporting more than 100 partners worldwide.

Why does last-mile access matter so much for warehousing in South Sudan?

Because South Sudan has about 20,000 km of roads but only 400 km paved, and most rural roads are impassable in the rainy season, a structure must be moved and stood up before access closes or it cannot be used until the roads reopen.

Is it faster to ship a warehouse to a port or deploy one in-country?

A structure shipped FOB a port is priced at the quay, leaving freight, customs, road move, and erection to the buyer; an in-country deployment is priced as a standing store on a prepared pad, which usually wins on delivered timeline in hard-access settings.

Talk to a team that owns the whole chain

SLS is Hallgruppen's authorised regional distributor, and we deliver design, deployment, last-mile movement, and customs as one chain rather than four disconnected purchases. We are in-country across five countries with our own crews and customs expertise, and we are a UNGM-registered vendor (380716), so we can transact with UN buyers directly. If you need 100 tonnes of relief stock under cover before the rains, request a quotation from SLS and we will quote the standing warehouse, not just the structure.