Within the distribution center, active floor management can assist the managers to enhance performance in 3 key ways. Be sure to regularly walk the floor to stay abreast of problems.
By having management show presence on the floor on a regular basis, it helps to recognize which workers might require more training and which might be the next to be promoted to a supervisory position; it shows you consider the floor and everything that happens there and the workers to be essential to the overall operation and really important; lastly, you could deal with issues as they arise.
Determine the Use of Space: Begin by checking cube utilization within your facility. Inspect if there is a lot of empty space close to the ceiling. Implementing higher racks and narrow aisles and particular forklifts which operate in those kinds of environments could really increase how you store and transport supplies. What might not seem like a lot of wasted area could translate into thousands of extra dollars and square feet with some adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: If you notice a stock-keeping unit or SKU has not moved in more than a year, it is certainly consuming valuable space. Moreover, if you have numerous half-full pallets which are stored or staged in aisles, you are also not utilizing available space to its full potential. By doing an inventory overhaul and re-organizing existing stock, much room could be made to accommodate things that are moving faster.
How is the Product Flow? Take the time to trace how exactly product flows in your facility regularly. Check to see if the flow is sequential and logical. Approximately 60% of direct labor in the warehouse is allotted to traveling from one place to another. You can probably have less staff finishing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move staff to complete other tasks rather than having employees doubled up transporting things would get more work out of the same amount of employees.
Review how the order filling process is taking place. If you notice that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one place and orders do not need items of this mix, pickers are wasting time. One more big waste of time is having the same SKU situated in many places inside the warehouse. Get the employees used of going to a specific location for each and every particular thing so that they are simply looking in one place and not traveling through the warehouse checking more than one location for the same thing. These small changes can greatly enhance the overall efficiency inside your warehouse.