Within the distribution center, active floor supervision can help the managers to improve performance in 3 key ways. Be sure to walk the floor on a regular basis to stay abreast of problems.
It helps to recognize which employees might require more training by having regular presence on management on the floor. These frequent visits could be utilized to see who may be the next to be promoted to a managerial position; it shows you consider the floor and all goings on there and the workers to be essential to the overall operation and very vital; finally, you can deal with problems as they occur.
Determine the Use of Space: Start by examining cube utilization within your facility. Check if there is a lot of empty space near the ceiling. Implementing narrower aisles and higher racks and certain forklifts which operate in those types of settings can really increase how you store and transport materials. What may not seem like much wasted area 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. Furthermore, if you have many half-full pallets which are stored or staged in aisles, you are also not using valuable space to its full potential. By re-organizing existing stock and doing an inventory overhaul, a lot of space can be made to accommodate faster moving objects.
How is the Flow of Product? Take the time to trace how exactly product flows through your facility regularly. Check to see if the flow is logical and sequential. Approximately 60 percent of direct labor in the warehouse is allotted to traveling from place to place. You can probably have less personnel finishing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move personnel to complete other tasks instead of having personnel doubled up transporting objects will get more work out of the same amount of personnel.
The order filling process should be reviewed and if it is identified that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one location. If orders do not require items of this mix, pickers are wasting time. Another big time-waster is having the same SKU situated in many places in the warehouse. Get the workers used of going to a specific location for each and every specific thing so that they are simply looking in one area and not traveling through the warehouse checking more than one place for the same thing. These small changes could greatly improve the overall effectiveness in your warehouse.