Active floor management allows managers to enhance performance in the distribution center in 3 key ways. Be sure to walk the floor regularly to stay abreast of issues.
It helps to recognize which employees might require more training by having regular presence on management on the floor. These frequent visits could be utilized to see who might be the next to be promoted to a supervisory position; it shows you consider the floor and all goings on there and the workers to be vital to the overall operation and extremely vital; lastly, you could address problems as they occur.
Determine the Use of Space: First, you should determine the cube utilization in you workspace, making sure to check how much empty space is located near the ceiling. Implementing narrower aisles and higher racks and certain forklifts which work in those kinds of environments could greatly increase how you transport and store supplies. What may not look like much wasted space can translate into thousands of square feet and extra dollars with a few adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: For instance, if a stock-keeping unit or SKU has not moved in over a year, then it is considered to be consuming valuable space. Additionally, if you have numerous half-full pallets 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, much room can be made to accommodate faster moving items.
How is the Flow of Product? Take the time to trace how exactly product flows in your facility regularly. Check to see if the flow is sequential and logical. Roughly 60 percent of direct labor in the warehouse is allotted to traveling from place to place. You could probably have less personnel finishing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move personnel to finish different other jobs rather than having personnel doubled up transporting items would 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 place. If orders do not require things of this mix, pickers are wasting time. One more big time-waster is having the same SKU situated in many places within the warehouse. Get the employees used of going to a specific location for every particular thing so that they are simply looking in one place and not traveling all around the warehouse checking more than one place for the same item. These small changes could vastly enhance the overall effectiveness within your warehouse.