Active floor management allows managers to improve performance in the distribution center in 3 key ways. Be sure to frequently walk the floor to stay abreast of issues.
It helps to identify which employees might need more training by having regular presence on management on the floor. These frequent visits could 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 extremely vital; lastly, you can deal with issues as they occur.
Determine the Use of Space: To start with, you should determine the cube utilization within you workplace, making sure to examine how much empty space is located close to the ceiling. Implementing higher racks and narrow aisles and specific forklifts that work in those kinds of settings can really increase how you store and move materials. What might not seem like a lot of wasted area could mean thousands of square feet and extra dollars with a few adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: If you see a stock-keeping unit or SKU has not moved in more than a year, it is certainly consuming valuable space. Additionally, 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 doing an inventory overhaul and re-organizing existing stock, a lot of space could be made to accommodate faster moving things.
How is the Product Flow? Make the time to trace how exactly product flows in your facility on a regular basis. Check to see if the flow is logical and sequential. About 60% of direct labor within the warehouse is allotted to traveling from place to place. You could probably have less employees finishing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move employees to complete other jobs rather than having employees doubled up moving items would get more work out of the same amount of personnel.
The order filling method must be reviewed and if it is identified that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one place. If orders do not need items of this mix, pickers are wasting time. Another big waste of time is having the same SKU situated in many places inside the warehouse. Get the staff used of going to a specific location for each and every specific item so that they are simply looking in one area and not traveling through the warehouse checking more than one location for the same thing. These small changes can greatly improve the overall effectiveness in your warehouse.