Active floor supervision allows supervisors to enhance performance within the distribution center 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 identify which workers might require more training and which may be the next to be promoted to a managerial position; it shows you consider the floor and everything that occurs there and the workers to be vital to the overall operation and really important; lastly, you can address issues as they arise.
Determine the Utilization of Space: To start with, you should determine the cube utilization in you workspace, making sure to check how much empty space is situated near the ceiling. Implementing higher racks and narrow aisles and particular forklifts that operate in those types of settings can really increase how you move and store supplies. What may not look like much wasted area can mean thousands of extra dollars and square feet with a few adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: If you see a stock-keeping unit or SKU has not moved in over a year, it is certainly consuming valuable space. Moreover, if you have numerous half-full pallets staged or stored 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 space can be made to accommodate objects which are moving faster.
How is the Flow of Product? Make the time to trace how precisely product flows through your facility regularly. Check to see if the flow is logical and sequential. Roughly 60% of direct labor within the warehouse is allotted to traveling from place to place. You could potentially have less personnel completing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move employees to finish other tasks rather than having personnel doubled up transporting objects will get more work out of the same amount of personnel.
The order filling procedure 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. Another huge time-waster is having the same SKU located in many places inside the warehouse. Get the employees used of going to a particular location for each and every particular thing so that they are simply looking in one area and not traveling through the warehouse checking more than one place for the same thing. These small changes can vastly improve the overall efficiency inside your warehouse.