In the distribution center, active floor supervision can help the managers to improve performance in 3 key ways. Be sure to walk the floor regularly to stay abreast of issues.
By having management show presence on the floor on a regular basis, it helps to identify which employees may need more training and which may be the next to be promoted to a managerial position; it shows you consider the floor and everything that occurs there and the employees to be vital to the overall operation and extremely essential; lastly, you can address problems as they arise.
Determine the Utilization of Space: Start by examining cube utilization within your facility. Check if there is a lot of empty space near the ceiling. Implementing higher racks and narrow aisles and certain forklifts that work in those kinds of environments could greatly increase how you move and store supplies. What may not look like much wasted space can translate into thousands of extra dollars and square feet with a few adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: Like for instance, if a stock-keeping unit or SKU 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 staged or stored in aisles, you are also not using valuable space to its full potential. By doing an inventory overhaul and re-organizing existing stock, a lot of room can be made to accommodate faster moving items.
How is the Product Flow? Take the time to trace how precisely product flows in your facility regularly. Check to see if the flow is sequential and logical. Around 60% of direct labor in the warehouse is allotted to traveling from one place to another. You can potentially have less personnel completing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move staff to complete various other jobs instead of having personnel doubled up moving objects will get more work out of the same amount of employees.
Review how the order filling method is occurring. If you notice that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one place and orders do not require things of this mix, pickers are wasting time. Another huge time-waster is having the same SKU situated in many places within the warehouse. Get the staff used of going to a particular location for each and every particular 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 can vastly improve the overall efficiency in your warehouse.