Within the distribution center, active floor management could assist the managers to improve performance in 3 key ways. Be sure to walk the floor regularly to stay abreast of issues.
By having management show presence on the floor on a regular basis, it helps to recognize which workers may need more training and which might be the next to be promoted to a supervisory position; it shows you consider the floor and all goings on there and the workers to be essential to the overall operation and extremely important; lastly, you can address issues as they happen.
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 narrower aisles and higher racks and particular forklifts that operate in those types of settings can greatly increase how you transport and store materials. What may not seem like a lot of wasted space can mean thousands of extra dollars and square feet with a few adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: Like for example, if a stock-keeping unit or SKU has not moved in more than a year, then it is considered to be consuming valuable space. Additionally, if you have many half-full pallets which are stored or staged in aisles, you are also not using available space to its full potential. By re-organizing existing stock and doing an inventory overhaul, much room could be made to accommodate items which are moving faster.
How is the Flow of Product? Check to see if the product flow is both sequential and logical, by taking the time to trace how precisely product flows through your facility on a regular basis. Approximately 60 percent of direct labor within the warehouse is allotted to traveling from place to place. You could potentially have less personnel finishing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move staff to finish different other tasks instead of having personnel doubled up transporting things would get more work out of the same amount of personnel.
The order filling procedure should be reviewed and if it is identified that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one location. If orders do not require things of this mix, pickers are wasting time. One more big waste of time is having the same SKU located in multiple places within the warehouse. Get the staff used of going to a specific location for each particular thing so that they are just looking in one place and not traveling through the warehouse checking more than one location for the same item. These small changes could greatly enhance the overall efficiency in your warehouse.