Active floor supervision allows supervisors to enhance performance in 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 on a regular basis, it helps to recognize which workers may 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 workers to be vital to the overall operation and very vital; lastly, you could deal with problems as they arise.
Determine the Use of Space: To start with, you should determine the cube utilization within you workspace, making sure to examine how much empty space is located near the ceiling. Implementing narrower aisles and higher racks and particular forklifts that operate in those types of settings can greatly increase how you store and transport supplies. What may not look like much wasted space could translate into thousands of square feet and extra dollars with a few adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: If you see a stock-keeping unit or SKU has not moved in over a year, it is definitely consuming valuable space. In addition, if you have many half-full pallets that are staged or stored in aisles, you are also not using valuable 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 items.
How is the Product Flow? Check to see if the product flow is both logical and sequential, by taking the time to trace how exactly product flows through your facility regularly. Approximately 60% of direct labor in the warehouse is allotted to traveling from place to place. You can probably have less staff completing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move personnel to finish different other tasks instead of having employees doubled up transporting items would get more work out of the same amount of personnel.
The order filling procedure should be reviewed and if it is identified that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one location. If orders do not need objects of this mix, pickers are wasting time. Another big time-waster is having the same SKU situated in many locations in the warehouse. Get the workers used of going to a particular place for each specific thing so that they are simply looking in one place and not traveling all around the warehouse checking more than one location for the same item. These small changes could vastly improve the overall efficiency inside your warehouse.