In the distribution center, active floor supervision could assist the supervisors to enhance performance in 3 key ways. Be sure to walk the floor on a regular basis to stay abreast of issues.
By having management show presence on the floor on a regular basis, it helps to identify which workers might need more training and which might 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 vital to the overall operation and really vital; finally, you can address problems as they occur.
Determine the Utilization of Space: To start with, you must determine the cube utilization in you workspace, making sure to examine how much empty space is situated close to the ceiling. Implementing higher racks and narrow aisles and particular forklifts that operate in those types of environments can greatly increase how you transport and store materials. What may not look like much wasted space could translate into thousands of square feet and extra dollars with some adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: If you notice a stock-keeping unit or SKU has not moved in more than a year, it is certainly consuming valuable space. In addition, if you have lots of half-full pallets staged or stored in aisles, you are also not using available space to its full potential. By re-organizing existing stock and doing an inventory overhaul, a lot of space could be made to accommodate items which are moving faster.
How is the Product Flow? Take the time to trace how exactly product flows in your facility regularly. Check to see if the flow is sequential and logical. Roughly 60% of direct labor in the warehouse is allotted to traveling from one place to another. You can potentially have less personnel finishing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move employees to complete other jobs instead of having workers doubled up transporting objects would get more work out of the same amount of staff.
Review how the order filling procedure is happening. If you notice that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one location and orders do not need items of this mix, pickers are wasting time. One more huge time-waster is having the same SKU situated in multiple places in the warehouse. Get the workers used of going to a particular place for each particular item 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 efficiency in your warehouse.