Active floor supervision allows supervisors to enhance performance in the distribution center in 3 key ways. Be sure to frequently walk the floor to stay abreast of issues.
By having management show presence on the floor on a regular basis, it helps to recognize which workers might require more training and which might be the next to be promoted to a supervisory position; it shows you consider the floor and everything that happens there and the workers to be essential to the overall operation and very essential; lastly, you can deal with issues as they arise.
Determine the Utilization of Space: Begin by examining cube utilization within your facility. Check if there is much empty space near the ceiling. Implementing higher racks and narrow aisles and specific forklifts that work in those kinds of environments can greatly increase how you transport and store materials. What might not seem like much wasted area could translate into thousands of extra dollars and square feet with some adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: If you notice a stock-keeping unit or SKU has not moved in more than a year, it is definitely consuming valuable space. Additionally, if you have lots of half-full pallets which are stored or staged in aisles, you are also not utilizing available space to its full potential. By doing an inventory overhaul and re-organizing existing stock, much room can be made to accommodate items that are moving faster.
How is the Product Flow? Check to see if the flow of products is both logical and sequential, by taking the time to trace how precisely product flows through your facility on a regular basis. Around 60% of direct labor within the warehouse is allotted to traveling from place to place. You can potentially have less personnel completing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move staff to complete other jobs instead of having employees doubled up transporting items will get more work out of the same amount of staff.
Review how the order filling procedure is taking place. If you notice that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one place and orders do not need objects of this mix, pickers are wasting time. One more big waste of time is having the same SKU located in many places within the warehouse. Get the employees used of going to a specific place for each and every specific item so that they are just looking in one area and not traveling through the warehouse checking more than one location for the same thing. These small changes could vastly enhance the overall efficiency inside your warehouse.