Active floor management allows supervisors to enhance performance within the distribution center in 3 main ways. Be sure to regularly walk the floor to stay abreast of problems.
By having management show presence on the floor on a regular basis, it helps to recognize which employees might require more training and which may be the next to be promoted to a managerial position; it shows you consider the floor and everything that happens there and the employees to be vital to the overall operation and extremely vital; finally, you can deal with problems as they occur.
Determine the Utilization of Space: To start with, you should determine the cube utilization within you workspace, making sure to check how much empty space is situated close to the ceiling. Implementing narrower aisles and higher racks and certain forklifts which operate in those kinds of settings could greatly increase how you move and store supplies. What may not look like much wasted space can translate into 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 definitely consuming valuable space. As well, if you have many half-full pallets that are stored or staged in aisles, you are also not using available space to its full potential. By re-organizing existing stock and doing an inventory overhaul, much space can 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 in your facility on a regular basis. Approximately 60 percent of direct labor within the warehouse is allotted to traveling from place to place. You could potentially have less employees finishing the same amount of work by being aware of product flow. Being able to move employees to finish different other tasks instead of having workers doubled up transporting objects would get more work out of the same amount of staff.
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 need things of this mix, pickers are wasting time. One more big waste of time is having the same SKU located in many places in the warehouse. Get the staff used of going to a particular place for every particular item so that they are just looking in one area and not traveling through the warehouse checking more than one place for the same thing. These small changes can greatly enhance the overall effectiveness within your warehouse.