Within the distribution center, active floor supervision can assist the managers to improve performance in 3 key ways. Be sure to regularly 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 can be used to see who may 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 really vital; finally, you could deal with problems as they occur.
Determine the Utilization of Space: First, you should determine the cube utilization within you workspace, making sure to check how much empty space is situated close to the ceiling. Implementing higher racks and narrow aisles and particular forklifts that operate in those types of settings can greatly increase how you move and store materials. What may not seem like a lot of wasted space can translate into thousands of extra dollars and square feet with a few adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: If you see a SKU or stock-keeping unit has not moved in over a year, it is definitely consuming valuable space. Additionally, if you have lots of half-full pallets that are stored or staged in aisles, you are also not utilizing valuable space to its full potential. By re-organizing existing stock and doing an inventory overhaul, a lot of space could be made to accommodate faster moving items.
How is the Product Flow? Check to see if the product flow is both sequential and logical, by making the time to trace how exactly product flows in your facility on a regular basis. Approximately 60 percent of direct labor in the warehouse is allotted to traveling from place to place. You could potentially have less staff completing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move staff to complete various other tasks instead of having personnel doubled up transporting items would get more work out of the same amount of staff.
Review how the order filling process is occurring. If you notice that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one location and orders do not require items of this mix, pickers are wasting time. Another big time-waster is having the same SKU located in multiple places in the warehouse. Get the employees used of going to a specific place for each specific item so that they are just looking in one area and not traveling through the warehouse checking more than one location for the same thing. These small changes could greatly enhance the overall efficiency in your warehouse.