Within the distribution center, active floor management can assist the managers to enhance performance in 3 key ways. Be sure to regularly walk the floor to stay abreast of issues.
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 might 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 really essential; finally, you can deal with problems as they arise.
Determine the Utilization of Space: Begin by checking cube utilization within your facility. Check if there is much empty space close to the ceiling. Implementing higher racks and narrow aisles and specific forklifts that work in those types of environments can greatly increase how you store and transport materials. What might not seem like much wasted space could 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 more than a year, it is definitely consuming valuable space. What's more, if you have many half-full pallets staged or stored in aisles, you are also not using available space to its full potential. By re-organizing existing stock and doing an inventory overhaul, a lot of room could be made to accommodate objects that are moving faster.
How is the Product Flow? Check to see if the product flow is both sequential and logical, by taking the time to trace how exactly product flows through your facility regularly. Approximately 60 percent of direct labor in the warehouse is allotted to traveling from place to place. You can probably have less personnel finishing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move staff to finish other tasks rather than having personnel doubled up transporting objects would get more work out of the same amount of employees.
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 require items of this mix, pickers are wasting time. One more huge time-waster is having the same SKU located in many places inside the warehouse. Get the staff used of going to a specific place for each and every particular item so that they are just looking in one place and not traveling all over the warehouse checking more than one location for the same item. These small changes can greatly enhance the overall effectiveness within your warehouse.