Active floor supervision allows managers to enhance performance within the distribution center in 3 main ways. Be sure to regularly walk the floor to stay abreast of problems.
It helps to identify which employees might require more training by having regular presence on management on the floor. These regular visits can be used to see who might be the next to be promoted to a supervisory position; it shows you consider the floor and everything which occurs there and the employees to be essential to the overall operation and very essential; finally, you can deal with problems as they occur.
Determine the Use of Space: First, you must determine the cube utilization within you workspace, making sure to check how much empty space is located near the ceiling. Implementing higher racks and narrow aisles and particular forklifts which work in those kinds of settings can really increase how you store and move supplies. What may not look like much wasted space can mean thousands of square feet and extra dollars with a few adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: Like for instance, if a stock-keeping unit or SKU has not moved in more than a year, then it is considered to be consuming valuable space. Moreover, if you have numerous half-full pallets which are staged or stored in aisles, you are also not utilizing valuable space to its full potential. By doing an inventory overhaul and re-organizing existing stock, much space can be made to accommodate objects which are moving faster.
How is the Product Flow? Check to see if the flow of products is both logical and sequential, by taking the time to trace how precisely product flows through your facility on a regular basis. About 60% of direct labor in the warehouse is allotted to traveling from place to place. You could potentially have less staff completing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move staff to complete different other jobs instead of having employees doubled up transporting objects will get more work out of the same amount of employees.
Review how the order filling procedure is taking place. If you notice that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one place and orders do not need things of this mix, pickers are wasting time. Another huge waste of time is having the same SKU located in multiple locations inside the warehouse. Get the employees used of going to a specific location for each particular item so that they are simply looking in one area and not traveling through the warehouse checking more than one location for the same item. These small changes can greatly improve the overall effectiveness within your warehouse.