Active floor supervision enables managers to improve performance within the distribution center in 3 key ways. Be sure to walk the floor on a regular basis to stay abreast of issues.
By having management show presence on the floor regularly, it helps to recognize which workers might need more training and which might be the next to be promoted to a supervisory position; it shows you consider the floor and all goings on there and the workers to be essential to the overall operation and extremely important; lastly, you can deal with issues as they happen.
Determine the Utilization of Space: To begin with, you should determine the cube utilization within you workspace, making sure to examine how much empty space is situated close to the ceiling. Implementing narrower aisles and higher racks and particular forklifts that work in those kinds of settings can greatly increase how you store and move supplies. What may not seem like much wasted area can translate into thousands of extra dollars and square feet with some adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: For example, if a SKU or stock-keeping unit has not moved in over a year, then it is considered to be consuming valuable space. Furthermore, if you have numerous half-full pallets that are stored or staged in aisles, you are also not utilizing valuable space to its full potential. By re-organizing existing stock and doing an inventory overhaul, a lot of room can be made to accommodate faster moving items.
How is the Flow of Product? Take the time to trace how exactly product flows through your facility regularly. Check to see if the flow is logical and sequential. Approximately 60 percent of direct labor in the warehouse is allotted to traveling from one place to another. You could probably have less staff completing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move employees to complete other tasks instead of having employees doubled up moving things will get more work out of the same amount of employees.
The order filling procedure should be reviewed and if it is identified that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one location. If orders do not require items of this mix, pickers are wasting time. Another big waste of time is having the same SKU located in multiple locations within the warehouse. Get the workers used of going to a particular place for each and every specific thing so that they are simply looking in one area and not traveling through the warehouse checking more than one place for the same item. These small changes could greatly improve the overall efficiency inside your warehouse.