Active floor management enables managers to improve performance within the distribution center in 3 main ways. Be sure to walk the floor regularly to stay abreast of issues.
By having management show presence on the floor regularly, it helps to recognize which employees might require more training and which might be the next to be promoted to a supervisory position; it shows you consider the floor and everything that occurs there and the workers to be vital to the overall operation and really essential; lastly, you could address issues 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 situated close to the ceiling. Implementing narrower aisles and higher racks and specific forklifts that operate in those types of settings could greatly increase how you store and transport supplies. What might 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 example, if a SKU or stock-keeping unit has not moved in over a year, then it is considered to be consuming valuable space. As well, if you have a lot of half-full pallets which are stored or staged in aisles, you are also not utilizing available space to its full potential. By re-organizing existing stock and doing an inventory overhaul, a lot of room could be made to accommodate faster moving things.
How is the Flow of Product? Make the time to trace how precisely product flows in your facility regularly. Check to see if the flow is logical and sequential. Roughly 60% of direct labor within the warehouse is allotted to traveling from one place to another. You could potentially have less employees finishing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move employees to finish different other jobs instead of having employees doubled up moving objects will get more work out of the same amount of personnel.
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 need things of this mix, pickers are wasting time. Another huge waste of time is having the same SKU located in many locations in the warehouse. Get the employees used of going to a specific place for each and 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 vastly enhance the overall efficiency in your warehouse.