Active floor management enables supervisors to enhance performance in the distribution center in 3 main ways. Be sure to regularly walk the floor to stay abreast of issues.
By having management show presence on the floor regularly, it helps to identify which workers may require more training and which may be the next to be promoted to a managerial position; it shows you consider the floor and everything which happens there and the workers to be vital to the overall operation and very vital; finally, you could address issues as they happen.
Determine the Utilization of Space: Start by checking cube utilization within your facility. Check if there is much empty space close to the ceiling. Implementing narrower aisles and higher racks and certain forklifts which operate in those types of settings can really increase how you move and store materials. What may not seem like much wasted space could translate into thousands of square feet and extra dollars with a few adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: For instance, if a SKU or stock-keeping unit has not moved in over a year, then it is considered to be consuming valuable space. What's more, if you have lots of half-full pallets staged or stored 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 can be made to accommodate things that are moving faster.
How is the Product Flow? Make the time to trace how precisely product flows in your facility on a regular basis. Check to see if the flow is sequential and logical. Around 60 percent of direct labor in the warehouse is allotted to traveling from place to place. You could potentially have less staff finishing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move personnel to complete other tasks rather than having personnel doubled up transporting objects would get more work out of the same amount of staff.
The order filling process should 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 waste of time is having the same SKU situated in multiple places within the warehouse. Get the workers 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 all over the warehouse checking more than one place for the same item. These small changes could vastly improve the overall effectiveness within your warehouse.