Within the distribution center, active floor supervision could help the supervisors to improve performance in 3 key ways. Be sure to regularly walk the floor to stay abreast of problems.
It helps to identify which workers may require more training by having regular presence on management on the floor. These frequent visits could be used to see who might be the next to be promoted to a managerial position; it shows you consider the floor and everything that occurs there and the employees to be vital to the overall operation and really vital; lastly, you could deal with issues as they occur.
Determine the Utilization of Space: To begin with, you must determine the cube utilization within you workspace, making sure to examine how much empty space is located close to the ceiling. Implementing narrower aisles and higher racks and particular forklifts which work in those kinds of environments could greatly increase how you store and transport materials. What may not look like much wasted area can translate into thousands of extra dollars and square feet with some adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: If you see a SKU or stock-keeping unit has not moved in more than a year, it is definitely consuming valuable space. As well, if you have many half-full pallets stored or staged in aisles, you are also not utilizing available space to its full potential. By re-organizing existing stock and doing an inventory overhaul, much space could be made to accommodate items that are moving faster.
How is the Flow of Product? Make the time to trace how precisely product flows through your facility regularly. Check to see if the flow is sequential and logical. About 60% of direct labor in the warehouse is allotted to traveling from place to place. You can probably have less employees completing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move employees to finish other tasks rather than having employees doubled up transporting things would get more work out of the same amount of staff.
Review how the order filling method is occurring. If you notice that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one location and orders do not require objects of this mix, pickers are wasting time. One more big time-waster is having the same SKU situated in multiple locations within the warehouse. Get the staff used of going to a particular 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 item. These small changes could greatly enhance the overall efficiency inside your warehouse.