Within the distribution center, active floor management could help the supervisors to enhance performance in 3 main ways. Be sure to frequently walk the floor to stay abreast of problems.
By having management show presence on the floor on a regular basis, it helps to recognize which employees might require more training and which may be the next to be promoted to a supervisory position; it shows you consider the floor and everything that happens there and the workers to be vital to the overall operation and really vital; lastly, you could deal with problems as they arise.
Determine the Use of Space: To begin with, you should determine the cube utilization in you workspace, making sure to examine how much empty space is located near the ceiling. Implementing higher racks and narrow aisles and particular forklifts which work in those kinds of settings can really increase how you transport and store materials. What may not look like a lot of wasted area can mean thousands of square feet and extra dollars with some adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: If you see a SKU or stock-keeping unit has not moved in over a year, it is certainly consuming valuable space. As well, if you have numerous half-full pallets stored or staged in aisles, you are also not using available 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 Flow of Product? Make the time to trace how exactly product flows in your facility regularly. Check to see if the flow is logical and sequential. Roughly 60% of direct labor in the warehouse is allotted to traveling from one place to another. You could probably have less personnel finishing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move staff to complete other tasks rather than having personnel doubled up transporting things will get more work out of the same amount of staff.
The order filling method must be reviewed and if it is identified that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one location. If orders do not need objects of this mix, pickers are wasting time. Another big time-waster is having the same SKU located in many places in the warehouse. Get the staff used of going to a particular location for every specific thing so that they are simply looking in one place and not traveling through the warehouse checking more than one location for the same item. These small changes could vastly enhance the overall efficiency inside your warehouse.