Within the distribution center, active floor supervision could help the supervisors to enhance performance in 3 main ways. Be sure to walk the floor regularly to stay abreast of issues.
By having management show presence on the floor regularly, it helps to identify which employees may need more training and which may be the next to be promoted to a managerial position; it shows you consider the floor and everything that happens there and the workers to be vital to the overall operation and really important; lastly, you could address issues as they arise.
Determine the Utilization of Space: Begin by examining cube utilization in your facility. Check if there is much empty space 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 might not look like a lot of wasted space could mean thousands of extra dollars and square feet with some adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: If you see 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 numerous half-full pallets which are stored or staged in aisles, you are also not utilizing valuable space to its full potential. By doing an inventory overhaul and re-organizing existing stock, a lot of room can be made to accommodate faster moving items.
How is the Product Flow? Make the time to trace how exactly product flows in your facility regularly. Check to see if the flow is sequential and logical. Around 60% of direct labor in the warehouse is allotted to traveling from one place to another. You could potentially have less employees completing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move employees to finish different other jobs instead of having workers doubled up moving things will get more work out of the same amount of employees.
Review how the order filling procedure is taking place. If you notice that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one location and orders do not need items of this mix, pickers are wasting time. Another big time-waster is having the same SKU situated in multiple places inside the warehouse. Get the employees used of going to a particular place 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 location for the same thing. These small changes can greatly enhance the overall efficiency within your warehouse.