Active floor management enables managers to improve performance within 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 on a regular basis, it helps to recognize which workers might require more training and which may be the next to be promoted to a supervisory position; it shows you consider the floor and all goings on there and the employees to be vital to the overall operation and very vital; lastly, you can deal with problems as they happen.
Determine the Use of Space: Begin by checking cube utilization in your facility. Inspect if there is much empty space near the ceiling. Implementing higher racks and narrow aisles and certain forklifts that work in those types of environments can really increase how you move and store materials. What may not look like a lot of wasted area could translate into thousands of extra dollars and square feet with a few adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: 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. Also, if you have numerous half-full pallets that are stored or staged in aisles, you are also not using valuable space to its full potential. By doing an inventory overhaul and re-organizing existing stock, a lot of room can be made to accommodate things that are moving faster.
How is the Product Flow? Make the time to trace how exactly product flows through your facility on a regular basis. Check to see if the flow is sequential and logical. Approximately 60% of direct labor in the warehouse is allotted to traveling from one place to another. You could probably have less staff finishing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move personnel to finish other jobs instead of having employees doubled up moving objects would get more work out of the same amount of staff.
The order filling method must be reviewed and if it is identified that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one location. If orders do not require objects of this mix, pickers are wasting time. Another huge waste of time is having the same SKU located in multiple places in the warehouse. Get the workers used of going to a specific place for each and every particular item so that they are simply looking in one place and not traveling through the warehouse checking more than one location for the same item. These small changes could vastly enhance the overall efficiency inside your warehouse.