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.
By having management show presence on the floor on a regular basis, it helps to recognize which workers might require more training and which may be the next to be promoted to a supervisory position; it shows you consider the floor and all goings on there and the employees to be vital to the overall operation and really essential; finally, you can deal with problems as they happen.
Determine the Utilization of Space: Start by checking cube utilization in your facility. Check if there is a lot of empty space close to the ceiling. Implementing higher racks and narrow aisles and particular forklifts which operate in those types of environments could greatly increase how you store and move materials. What might not seem like a lot of wasted space can translate into thousands of square feet and extra dollars with some adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: Like for instance, if a SKU or stock-keeping unit has not moved in more than a year, then it is considered to be consuming valuable space. In addition, if you have a lot of half-full pallets staged or stored in aisles, you are also not using available space to its full potential. By doing an inventory overhaul and re-organizing existing stock, a lot of room could be made to accommodate items which are moving faster.
How is the Product Flow? Take the time to trace how exactly product flows in your facility on a regular basis. Check to see if the flow is sequential and logical. Approximately 60% of direct labor within the warehouse is allotted to traveling from place to place. You could potentially 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 employees doubled up moving objects would get more work out of the same amount of employees.
The order filling process should be reviewed and if it is identified that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one place. If orders do not require objects of this mix, pickers are wasting time. Another big waste of time is having the same SKU located in many locations in the warehouse. Get the workers used of going to a specific place for each particular item so that they are simply looking in one area and not traveling all over the warehouse checking more than one place for the same item. These small changes can vastly enhance the overall effectiveness inside your warehouse.