Active floor management allows managers to enhance performance within the distribution center in 3 key ways. Be sure to walk the floor on a regular basis to stay abreast of problems.
It helps to identify which employees might 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 managerial position; it shows you consider the floor and all goings on there and the employees to be essential to the overall operation and extremely vital; finally, you could deal with problems as they happen.
Determine the Utilization of Space: First, you should determine the cube utilization within you workspace, making sure to examine how much empty space is located near the ceiling. Implementing higher racks and narrow aisles and certain forklifts that operate in those kinds of settings can really increase how you transport and store supplies. What may not look like a lot of wasted space can mean thousands of square feet and extra dollars with a few adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: Like 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. Furthermore, if you have numerous half-full pallets stored or staged in aisles, you are also not utilizing valuable space to its full potential. By re-organizing existing stock and doing an inventory overhaul, much space could be made to accommodate faster moving things.
How is the Flow of Product? Check to see if the product flow is both sequential and logical, by taking the time to trace how exactly product flows through your facility on a regular basis. About 60 percent of direct labor in the warehouse is allotted to traveling from place to place. You could potentially have less employees completing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move staff to finish other tasks instead of having workers doubled up transporting things would get more work out of the same amount of employees.
The order filling method should 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 situated in multiple locations in the warehouse. Get the staff used of going to a specific place for each and every particular thing so that they are simply looking in one area and not traveling through the warehouse checking more than one place for the same item. These small changes could greatly improve the overall effectiveness inside your warehouse.