Within the distribution center, active floor supervision could help the supervisors to improve performance in 3 key ways. Be sure to frequently walk the floor to stay abreast of issues.
It helps to identify which workers may need more training by having regular presence on management on the floor. These regular visits could be utilized to see who 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 vital to the overall operation and extremely essential; lastly, you can address problems as they arise.
Determine the Use of Space: First, you should determine the cube utilization within you workspace, making sure to examine how much empty space is situated close to the ceiling. Implementing narrower aisles and higher racks and particular forklifts which operate in those types of settings could greatly increase how you store and move supplies. What might not look like a lot of wasted space could mean thousands of square feet and extra dollars with some adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: If you see a SKU or stock-keeping unit has not moved in over a year, it is certainly consuming valuable space. In addition, if you have lots of half-full pallets staged or stored in aisles, you are also not utilizing valuable 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? Take the time to trace how precisely product flows in your facility regularly. Check to see if the flow is logical and sequential. About 60% of direct labor within the warehouse is allotted to traveling from one place to another. You could probably have less employees completing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move staff to complete other tasks rather than having workers doubled up transporting objects would get more work out of the same amount of personnel.
The order filling procedure must be reviewed and if it is identified that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one place. If orders do not need objects of this mix, pickers are wasting time. One more huge waste of time is having the same SKU situated in multiple places within the warehouse. Get the employees used of going to a particular location for 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 can greatly enhance the overall efficiency inside your warehouse.