Active floor supervision allows supervisors to improve performance within the distribution center in 3 main ways. Be sure to frequently 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 can be used to see who may be the next to be promoted to a managerial position; it shows you consider the floor and everything which happens there and the employees to be essential to the overall operation and extremely vital; finally, you could deal with problems as they happen.
Determine the Use of Space: Start by examining cube utilization in your facility. Check if there is a lot of empty space near the ceiling. Implementing narrower aisles and higher racks and certain forklifts which operate in those kinds of environments could really increase how you store and transport materials. What may not seem like much wasted space can mean thousands of extra dollars and square feet with a few adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: Like for example, if a SKU or stock-keeping unit has not moved in over a year, then it is considered to be consuming valuable space. As well, if you have numerous half-full pallets that are 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 room can be made to accommodate faster moving things.
How is the Flow of Product? Make the time to trace how exactly product flows in your facility on a regular basis. Check to see if the flow is sequential and logical. Roughly 60% of direct labor within the warehouse is allotted to traveling from one place to another. You could probably have less employees completing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move staff to finish various other jobs instead of having personnel doubled up moving objects will 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 location. If orders do not require objects of this mix, pickers are wasting time. Another big time-waster is having the same SKU located in many locations inside the warehouse. Get the staff used of going to a specific location for each and every particular item so that they are simply looking in one area and not traveling all over the warehouse checking more than one place for the same item. These small changes can greatly enhance the overall effectiveness within your warehouse.