In the distribution center, active floor management can help the supervisors to improve performance in 3 main ways. Be sure to walk the floor on a regular basis to stay abreast of issues.
By having management show presence on the floor on a regular basis, it helps to identify which employees may need more training and which might be the next to be promoted to a supervisory position; it shows you consider the floor and all goings on there and the employees to be essential to the overall operation and really important; finally, you can address problems as they arise.
Determine the Use of Space: First, you should 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 certain forklifts which work in those types of settings can really increase how you transport and store supplies. What may not seem like much wasted space can translate into thousands of square feet and extra dollars with a few adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: For example, if a stock-keeping unit or SKU has not moved in over a year, then it is considered to be consuming valuable space. Also, if you have numerous half-full pallets that are staged or stored in aisles, you are also not using available space to its full potential. By re-organizing existing stock and doing an inventory overhaul, a lot of space could be made to accommodate faster moving objects.
How is the Flow of Product? Check to see if the flow of products is both sequential and logical, by making the time to trace how exactly product flows through your facility on a regular basis. About 60 percent of direct labor within the warehouse is allotted to traveling from place to place. You could potentially have less personnel finishing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move staff to finish other tasks rather than having employees doubled up moving items will get more work out of the same amount of employees.
Review how the order filling process is taking place. If you notice that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one location and orders do not need objects of this mix, pickers are wasting time. One more big time-waster is having the same SKU situated in many locations in the warehouse. Get the workers used of going to a particular place for each and every particular item so that they are just looking in one area and not traveling through the warehouse checking more than one location for the same item. These small changes could greatly improve the overall efficiency within your warehouse.