In the distribution center, active floor supervision could assist the supervisors to improve performance in 3 main ways. Be sure to walk the floor on a regular basis to stay abreast of issues.
It helps to recognize which workers may need more training by having regular presence on management on the floor. These regular visits can be utilized to see who may be the next to be promoted to a managerial position; it shows you consider the floor and everything which occurs there and the employees to be essential to the overall operation and very essential; lastly, you can address problems as they happen.
Determine the Utilization of Space: To begin with, you must determine the cube utilization within you workplace, making sure to examine how much empty space is located near the ceiling. Implementing narrower aisles and higher racks and certain forklifts which operate in those types of settings can greatly increase how you store and move materials. What might 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: For instance, if a SKU or stock-keeping unit has not moved in over a year, then it is considered to be consuming valuable space. In addition, if you have numerous half-full pallets which are stored or staged in aisles, you are also not using 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 things that are moving faster.
How is the Flow of Product? Check to see if the flow of products is both logical and sequential, by taking the time to trace how exactly product flows in your facility regularly. Around 60 percent of direct labor within the warehouse is allotted to traveling from one place to another. You can probably have less personnel finishing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move employees to complete other jobs rather than having personnel doubled up transporting objects would get more work out of the same amount of personnel.
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 need items of this mix, pickers are wasting time. Another huge waste of time is having the same SKU situated in many places in the warehouse. Get the employees used of going to a particular location for every specific item so that they are simply looking in one place and not traveling all around the warehouse checking more than one place for the same thing. These small changes could greatly improve the overall effectiveness in your warehouse.