In the distribution center, active floor management can help the managers to improve performance in 3 main ways. Be sure to walk the floor regularly to stay abreast of problems.
It helps to recognize which workers may require more training by having regular presence on management on the floor. These regular visits could be utilized to see who may be the next to be promoted to a supervisory position; it shows you consider the floor and all goings on there and the workers to be essential to the overall operation and extremely vital; finally, you could deal with problems as they arise.
Determine the Use of Space: Begin by examining cube utilization in your facility. Inspect if there is much empty space close to the ceiling. Implementing narrower aisles and higher racks and particular forklifts that operate in those kinds of environments could really increase how you move and store materials. What may not look like a lot of wasted space could mean thousands of square feet and extra dollars with some adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: If you see a SKU or stock-keeping unit has not moved in more than a year, it is certainly consuming valuable space. What's more, if you have many half-full pallets stored or staged in aisles, you are also not using available space to its full potential. By doing an inventory overhaul and re-organizing existing stock, much space can be made to accommodate items that are moving faster.
How is the Product Flow? Take the time to trace how exactly product flows through your facility regularly. Check to see if the flow is logical and sequential. Approximately 60% of direct labor within the warehouse is allotted to traveling from place to place. You can probably have less employees finishing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move employees to complete various other jobs rather than having workers doubled up transporting items would get more work out of the same amount of personnel.
Review how the order filling process is taking place. If you notice that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one place and orders do not require objects of this mix, pickers are wasting time. One more big waste of time is having the same SKU situated in many locations in the warehouse. Get the workers used of going to a specific location for 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 item. These small changes can vastly improve the overall effectiveness in your warehouse.