In the distribution center, active floor management could help the supervisors to improve performance in 3 main ways. Be sure to walk the floor on a regular basis to stay abreast of issues.
It helps to recognize which workers might need more training by having regular presence on management on the floor. These frequent visits could be utilized to see who may be the next to be promoted to a managerial position; it shows you consider the floor and everything that occurs there and the employees to be essential to the overall operation and very important; lastly, you could deal with problems as they occur.
Determine the Utilization of Space: Start by examining cube utilization within your facility. Inspect if there is much empty space near the ceiling. Implementing narrower aisles and higher racks and certain forklifts which operate in those kinds of environments can greatly increase how you store and transport materials. What might not look like a lot of wasted area can translate into thousands of extra dollars and square feet with a few adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: If you notice a stock-keeping unit or SKU has not moved in over a year, it is definitely consuming valuable space. What's more, if you have numerous half-full pallets 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 items which are moving faster.
How is the Flow of Product? Check to see if the flow of products is both logical and sequential, by taking the time to trace how exactly product flows through your facility on a regular basis. Roughly 60% of direct labor within the warehouse is allotted to traveling from one place to another. You can potentially have less employees finishing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move personnel to complete other jobs rather than having workers doubled up transporting items would get more work out of the same amount of personnel.
The order filling process should be reviewed and if it is identified that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one location. If orders do not require things of this mix, pickers are wasting time. One more huge waste of time is having the same SKU situated in multiple places in the warehouse. Get the staff used of going to a specific place for every specific thing so that they are simply looking in one place and not traveling all around the warehouse checking more than one place for the same thing. These small changes can greatly enhance the overall effectiveness within your warehouse.