Active floor management allows supervisors to enhance performance in the distribution center in 3 key ways. Be sure to frequently walk the floor to stay abreast of problems.
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 might be the next to be promoted to a managerial position; it shows you consider the floor and all goings on there and the employees to be vital to the overall operation and really essential; lastly, you could address issues as they happen.
Determine the Utilization of Space: Begin by examining cube utilization within your facility. Inspect if there is much empty space near the ceiling. Implementing narrower aisles and higher racks and particular forklifts that operate in those types of settings could really increase how you transport and store materials. What may not seem like much wasted area could translate into thousands of extra dollars and square feet with a few adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: For example, if a SKU or stock-keeping unit has not moved in more than a year, then it is considered to be consuming valuable space. Additionally, if you have many 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 space can be made to accommodate faster moving items.
How is the Flow of Product? Take the time to trace how exactly product flows through your facility on a regular basis. Check to see if the flow is logical and sequential. Approximately 60 percent of direct labor within the warehouse is allotted to traveling from place to place. You can potentially have less employees completing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move personnel to finish various other tasks rather than having personnel doubled up moving items would get more work out of the same amount of staff.
The order filling procedure must be reviewed and if it is identified that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one location. If orders do not require things 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 particular place for each specific thing so that they are simply looking in one place and not traveling through the warehouse checking more than one place for the same thing. These small changes can greatly improve the overall effectiveness inside your warehouse.