Within the distribution center, active floor management could assist the managers to enhance performance in 3 key ways. Be sure to walk the floor regularly to stay abreast of issues.
It helps to recognize which employees may 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 really essential; finally, you could address issues as they arise.
Determine the Utilization of Space: Start by examining cube utilization in your facility. Check if there is much empty space near the ceiling. Implementing narrower aisles and higher racks and specific forklifts that work in those types of environments could greatly increase how you store and transport materials. What may not seem like a lot of wasted area could translate into thousands of square feet and extra dollars with some adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: If you notice a SKU or stock-keeping unit has not moved in over a year, it is certainly consuming valuable space. Also, if you have lots of half-full pallets that 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 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 on a regular basis. Check to see if the flow is sequential and logical. Around 60 percent of direct labor in the warehouse is allotted to traveling from place to place. You can probably have less staff completing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move personnel to finish other tasks rather than having personnel doubled up transporting items would get more work out of the same amount of staff.
Review how the order filling method is happening. 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. One more huge time-waster is having the same SKU located in multiple locations within the warehouse. Get the employees used of going to a specific place for each and every particular thing so that they are just looking in one area and not traveling all over the warehouse checking more than one location for the same item. These small changes could greatly enhance the overall efficiency within your warehouse.