In the distribution center, active floor supervision could help the managers to improve performance in 3 main ways. Be sure to walk the floor on a regular basis to stay abreast of issues.
By having management show presence on the floor regularly, 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 vital to the overall operation and very important; finally, you could address issues as they arise.
Determine the Use of Space: Start by checking cube utilization in your facility. Check if there is much empty space near the ceiling. Implementing higher racks and narrow aisles and certain forklifts which operate in those kinds of environments could really increase how you store and move supplies. What might not seem like a lot of wasted area can translate into thousands of extra dollars and square feet with a few adjustments.
Check for Obsolete Inventory: For example, if a stock-keeping unit or SKU has not moved in over a year, then it is considered to be 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 re-organizing existing stock and doing an inventory overhaul, a lot of space can be made to accommodate things that are moving faster.
How is the Product Flow? Check to see if the flow of products is both logical and sequential, by taking the time to trace how exactly product flows through your facility regularly. 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 complete various other tasks instead of having workers doubled up moving things 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 location and orders do not need objects of this mix, pickers are wasting time. One more huge time-waster is having the same SKU located in many places in the warehouse. Get the employees used of going to a particular location for every particular item 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 can greatly enhance the overall effectiveness inside your warehouse.