Active floor supervision allows managers to enhance performance in the distribution center in 3 main ways. Be sure to frequently walk the floor to stay abreast of problems.
It helps to identify which employees may require more training by having regular presence on management on the floor. These regular visits could be utilized to see who may be the next to be promoted to a managerial 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 can address problems as they arise.
Determine the Use of Space: To begin with, you should determine the cube utilization in you workspace, making sure to examine how much empty space is situated near the ceiling. Implementing higher racks and narrow aisles and certain forklifts which operate in those types of environments can greatly increase how you store and move supplies. What may not seem like a lot of wasted space could mean thousands of extra dollars and square feet with some adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: Like for example, if a SKU or stock-keeping unit has not moved in over a year, then it is considered to be consuming valuable space. Also, if you have many half-full pallets that are stored or staged in aisles, you are also not using available space to its full potential. By doing an inventory overhaul and re-organizing existing stock, much space could be made to accommodate items that are moving faster.
How is the Product Flow? 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 regularly. Approximately 60% of direct labor within the warehouse is allotted to traveling from place to place. You can potentially have less employees finishing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move personnel to finish other jobs instead of having personnel doubled up transporting things would get more work out of the same amount of staff.
The order filling process must be reviewed and if it is identified that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one location. If orders do not require items of this mix, pickers are wasting time. Another huge time-waster is having the same SKU situated in multiple places in the warehouse. Get the workers used of going to a specific location for every specific item so that they are just looking in one place and not traveling through the warehouse checking more than one place for the same thing. These small changes could greatly enhance the overall effectiveness within your warehouse.