Active floor supervision allows managers to enhance performance in the distribution center in 3 key ways. Be sure to regularly walk the floor to stay abreast of issues.
It helps to recognize which workers may need more training by having regular presence on management on the floor. These frequent visits can be utilized to see who may be the next to be promoted to a supervisory position; it shows you consider the floor and everything which happens there and the workers to be essential to the overall operation and really vital; lastly, you could address problems as they arise.
Determine the Utilization of Space: Start by checking cube utilization within your facility. Inspect if there is much empty space close to the ceiling. Implementing higher racks and narrow aisles and specific forklifts which operate in those types of settings could greatly increase how you transport and store supplies. What may not seem like much wasted area 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 lots of half-full pallets which are 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, much space could be made to accommodate faster moving objects.
How is the Flow of Product? Check to see if the product flow is both sequential and logical, by taking the time to trace how precisely product flows through your facility on a regular basis. About 60% of direct labor within the warehouse is allotted to traveling from one place to another. You could probably have less employees finishing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move employees to complete other tasks instead of having workers doubled up transporting things would get more work out of the same amount of employees.
Review how the order filling process is occurring. If you notice that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one place and orders do not need things of this mix, pickers are wasting time. Another huge time-waster is having the same SKU located in multiple places inside the warehouse. Get the staff used of going to a particular place for each particular item so that they are simply looking in one area and not traveling through the warehouse checking more than one location for the same item. These small changes can greatly improve the overall effectiveness within your warehouse.