Within the distribution center, active floor management could help the supervisors to improve performance in 3 main ways. Be sure to frequently 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 regular visits can be used to see who may 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 essential to the overall operation and very essential; finally, you could address issues as they happen.
Determine the Utilization of Space: To start with, you must determine the cube utilization within you workplace, making sure to check how much empty space is situated 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 supplies. What may not look like much wasted space could mean thousands of square feet and extra dollars with some adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: For example, if a stock-keeping unit or SKU has not moved in more than a year, then it is considered to be consuming valuable space. Also, if you have numerous half-full pallets which are staged or stored in aisles, you are also not utilizing available space to its full potential. By re-organizing existing stock and doing an inventory overhaul, a lot of space can be made to accommodate objects which are moving faster.
How is the Product Flow? Take the time to trace how precisely product flows through your facility regularly. Check to see if the flow is sequential and logical. Around 60 percent of direct labor in the warehouse is allotted to traveling from one place to another. You could potentially have less personnel completing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move staff to finish other jobs rather than having workers doubled up moving items would get more work out of the same amount of employees.
Review how the order filling process is happening. If you notice that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one location and orders do not require items of this mix, pickers are wasting time. Another big time-waster is having the same SKU located in many places in the warehouse. Get the employees used of going to a specific place for each particular item so that they are just looking in one area and not traveling all over the warehouse checking more than one location for the same item. These small changes can vastly improve the overall efficiency inside your warehouse.