Active floor supervision allows managers to enhance performance within the distribution center in 3 key ways. Be sure to frequently walk the floor to stay abreast of issues.
By having management show presence on the floor on a regular basis, it helps to identify which workers may require more training and which might 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 vital to the overall operation and extremely essential; finally, you could address issues as they occur.
Determine the Use of Space: To begin with, you should determine the cube utilization within you workspace, making sure to examine how much empty space is located close to the ceiling. Implementing narrower aisles and higher racks and specific forklifts that operate in those kinds of settings could really increase how you move and store supplies. What might not seem like much wasted space can translate into thousands of extra dollars and square feet with some adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: If you notice a stock-keeping unit or SKU has not moved in more than a year, it is certainly consuming valuable space. Moreover, if you have many half-full pallets which are staged or stored 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 faster moving objects.
How is the Product Flow? Take the time to trace how exactly 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 could potentially have less employees completing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move personnel to complete different other tasks instead of having personnel doubled up moving things will get more work out of the same amount of staff.
Review how the order filling process is happening. If you notice that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one place and orders do not require items of this mix, pickers are wasting time. Another big waste of time is having the same SKU situated in many locations inside the warehouse. Get the workers used of going to a particular place for every particular thing so that they are just looking in one area and not traveling through the warehouse checking more than one place for the same item. These small changes could vastly improve the overall efficiency inside your warehouse.