Active floor management allows supervisors to enhance performance in the distribution center in 3 key ways. Be sure to walk the floor regularly to stay abreast of problems.
It helps to recognize which employees may require more training by having regular presence on management on the floor. These frequent visits could be used to see who may be the next to be promoted to a supervisory position; it shows you consider the floor and everything that happens there and the employees to be vital to the overall operation and extremely vital; finally, you can deal with problems as they happen.
Determine the Utilization of Space: First, you must determine the cube utilization within you workplace, making sure to examine how much empty space is located near the ceiling. Implementing higher racks and narrow aisles and particular forklifts which operate in those kinds of settings can really increase how you store and move supplies. What might not look like a lot of wasted area can mean thousands of extra dollars and square feet with a few adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: For example, if a stock-keeping unit or SKU has not moved in more than a year, then it is considered to be consuming valuable space. In addition, if you have many half-full pallets that are 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 space can be made to accommodate objects that are moving faster.
How is the Product Flow? Check to see if the flow of products is both sequential and logical, by taking the time to trace how exactly product flows through your facility regularly. Approximately 60% of direct labor within the warehouse is allotted to traveling from one place to another. You could probably have less employees completing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move personnel to finish various other jobs rather than having workers doubled up moving items would get more work out of the same amount of staff.
Review how the order filling procedure is taking place. If you notice that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one location 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 multiple places within the warehouse. Get the workers used of going to a specific location for each and every particular thing so that they are just looking in one area and not traveling all over the warehouse checking more than one place for the same item. These small changes can greatly enhance the overall efficiency inside your warehouse.