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Make your warehouse more productive
We visit our customers regularly to share our expertise in material handling, but we also learn from customers. Here are a few of the productivity tips on warehouse management we've picked up over the years:
Measure and monitor
Measurements or metrics can be used to monitor overall operations (cost per order shipped or lines picked per man-hour) or specific improvement issues (lost-time injuries or error rate per hundred orders shipped).
The first thing to check is that your metrics are in line with overall business objectives and the things your customers consider important. Many companies use "customer report cards" on key criteria such as accuracy, on-time deliveries, dependability and speed.
Be sure to share metrics and the status with employees, since they will bring you the best ideas for productivity improvements. If you tie awards into improvement, you'll get more employee buy-in.
Walk the floor
Active floor supervision helps managers improve performance in the distribution center in three ways.
- It shows you consider the floor important.
- It helps you identify which employees might need extra help in training.
- You can address problems quickly as they come up.
Look at space utilization
Start by examining cube utilization of your facility. If there is a lot of empty space near the ceiling, higher racks, narrower aisles and forklifts that operate in these conditions could allow you to store and move more materials.
Also look for obsolete inventory. If a stock-keeping unit (SKU) hasn't moved in more than a year, it's wasting valuable space. Likewise, if you have half-full pallets stored or staged in the aisles, you're not using available space to full advantage.
Check product flow
Make a point of tracing how product flows through your facility regularly to see if the flow is still logical and sequential. Up to 60 percent of direct labor in the warehouse is attributed to traveling from location to location.
Consider how orders are filled. If you find that multiple SKUs are mixed in one location and orders don't call for this mix, pickers are wasting time. Another time-waster is having the same SKU in multiple locations.
Other considerations in product flow:
- The location of value-added processing. Does it fit into a logical flow or cause bottlenecks?
- The size of the receiving area. Is there room to perform all the activities correctly? Errors here cascade all through the operation.
- Equipment selection and maintenance. Do forklifts, shrink-wrappers, conveyors, etc. match the current operation? Is all the material handling equipment fully functional?
- Packing area location. Is this area near shipping, minimizing employee travel time?
- Signage & lighting. Do signs make the warehouse easy to navigate, with large lettering and color-coding?
Do the "newbie" test
One of our customers had a great idea. The warehouse manager asked a friend in, handed him a pick ticket and asked him to fill an order. It gave that manager a good idea where the process needed improvement.
If you're concerned about facility layout and the match of forklifts or other material handling equipment to your current application, give your local dealer a call. They can help you audit operations and share ideas for improving product flow and equipment choices. |
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