Active floor supervision allows 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 may need 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 workers to be essential to the overall operation and really vital; lastly, you could address issues as they happen.
Determine the Utilization of Space: Start by examining cube utilization within your facility. Check if there is much empty space near the ceiling. Implementing higher racks and narrow aisles and particular forklifts which operate in those types of environments can greatly increase how you store and move materials. What might not look like much wasted space can mean thousands of extra dollars and square feet with a few adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: If you see a SKU or stock-keeping unit has not moved in over a year, it is certainly consuming valuable space. What's more, if you have many half-full pallets which are staged or stored in aisles, you are also not utilizing available space to its full potential. By doing an inventory overhaul and re-organizing existing stock, much room could be made to accommodate objects 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. Around 60 percent of direct labor in the warehouse is allotted to traveling from one place to another. You could probably have less personnel finishing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move staff to finish other jobs instead of having employees doubled up moving objects would get more work out of the same amount of employees.
Review how the order filling method is taking place. If you notice that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one place and orders do not require items of this mix, pickers are wasting time. Another big waste of time is having the same SKU located in multiple locations inside the warehouse. Get the staff used of going to a specific location for every particular item so that they are simply looking in one area and not traveling all around the warehouse checking more than one location for the same item. These small changes can vastly improve the overall effectiveness in your warehouse.