The people who study warehouse efficiency have found that roughly 50 to 60 percent of travel time is wasted in the majority of material handling facilities. The objective is to minimize lift truck time and travel distance in particular ways that help prevent product damage and machine abuse. Some of the most common efficiency barriers to many warehouses are discussed below.
The new products would not always be positioned where it makes the most sense, these products are normally stored where there is extra room. The frequently handled things are separated due to storage handling requirements or to size. Because of increased business, Stock-Keeping Units or also called SKUs have proliferated. Replenishment and order-picking speeds are lessened because of bad lighting. The lift truck fleet is too small and more round trips are needed using the same machine. Lift trucks experience detours and slowdowns because of poor equipment maintenance and uneven floor surfaces. Inefficient warehouse design often leads to dead-end aisles and inefficient workflows.
There are 3 main areas to focus on if any of the above issues seem familiar at your place of work, or if you are aware of ways to be more effective overall:
The layout of the storage, shipping, and receiving areas: Direct the way your product flows by using a facility layout or by drawing a series of arrows. The best facilities provide a single direction, well-organized flow from receiving to shipping. If your arrows go in many different directions, or go in the opposite to the desired direction or double backwards in any spots, then you have determined your inefficient areas.
Work to improve access to product destinations, reduce travel distances between source and destination, lessen bottleneck places once you have identified your trouble spots. This can be done by re-vamping any forklift and high-travel congestion places.
What is cross-docking? Consider cross-docking options for things which quickly move throughout your facility. The cross-docked inventory is not stored in the warehouse. It is transported from inbound delivery almost directly to outbound shipping. Some of the consolidation and sorting is normally performed within the shipping areas. The easiest objects to cross-dock are usually bar coded products with predicable demands and high inventory carrying costs.
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