In the distribution center, active floor management could help the managers to improve performance in 3 main ways. Be sure to regularly walk the floor 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 frequent visits can be used to see who might be the next to be promoted to a managerial position; it shows you consider the floor and everything that happens there and the workers to be essential to the overall operation and really important; lastly, you could deal with issues as they arise.
Determine the Use of Space: Begin by examining cube utilization within your facility. Check if there is much empty space near the ceiling. Implementing narrower aisles and higher racks and certain forklifts that work in those types of environments could greatly increase how you transport and store materials. What may not seem like much 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. Additionally, if you have numerous half-full pallets stored or staged in aisles, you are also not utilizing available space to its full potential. By doing an inventory overhaul and re-organizing existing stock, a lot of space can be made to accommodate faster moving items.
How is the Product Flow? Check to see if the flow of products is both sequential and logical, by taking the time to trace how exactly product flows in your facility on a regular basis. Roughly 60% of direct labor within 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 staff to finish various other jobs rather than having personnel doubled up moving things will get more work out of the same amount of personnel.
The order filling method should be reviewed and if it is identified that a variety of SKUs are mixed-up in one place. If orders do not need things 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 specific thing 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 greatly improve the overall effectiveness inside your warehouse.