In the distribution center, active floor supervision can assist the supervisors to improve performance in 3 main ways. Be sure to regularly walk the floor to stay abreast of issues.
It helps to recognize which workers might require more training by having regular presence on management on the floor. These regular 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 which occurs there and the workers to be essential to the overall operation and very important; lastly, you can deal with problems as they occur.
Determine the Use of Space: First, you should determine the cube utilization in you workplace, making sure to check how much empty space is situated near the ceiling. Implementing narrower aisles and higher racks and particular forklifts that work in those types of environments can greatly increase how you transport and store materials. What might not look like a lot of wasted area can mean thousands of square feet and extra dollars with some 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. What's more, if you have numerous half-full pallets which 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, much space could be made to accommodate items which are moving faster.
How is the Product Flow? Take the time to trace how precisely product flows in your facility on a regular basis. Check to see if the flow is sequential and logical. Approximately 60% of direct labor in the warehouse is allotted to traveling from place to place. You could probably have less staff completing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move staff to complete other tasks rather than having workers doubled up moving items will get more work out of the same amount of staff.
The order filling method should be reviewed and if it is identified that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one place. If orders do not need items of this mix, pickers are wasting time. One more huge time-waster is having the same SKU situated in many locations inside the warehouse. Get the employees used of going to a specific place for each particular item so that they are just looking in one place and not traveling through the warehouse checking more than one location for the same item. These small changes can greatly enhance the overall effectiveness within your warehouse.