Those who have studied effectiveness in the warehouse has found that 50 to 60 percent of travel time is wasted in material handling facilities. The goal is to reduce lift truck travel distance and time in certain ways which help avoid machine abuse and damage to products. Some of the most common efficiency barriers to lots of warehouses are discussed below.
The new products will not always be placed where it makes the most sense, these products are usually stored where there is extra space. The regularly handled objects are separated due to size or to storage handling requirements. Because of increased business, SKUs or also called Stock-Keeping Units have proliferated. Replenishment and order-picking speeds are reduced because of poor lighting. The forklift fleet is too small and a lot more round trips are needed utilizing the same machinery. Lift trucks experience detours and slowdowns due to poor equipment maintenance and uneven floor surfaces. Inefficient warehouse design normally causes ineffective workflows and dead-end aisles.
If any of the above issues seem familiar at your workplace, or if you are aware of ways to be much more effective overall, there are 3 main areas to focus on:
The layout of the shipping, receiving and storage areas: Direct the way your product flows by utilizing a facility layout or by drawing a series of arrows. The best facilities provide a well-organized, single direction flow from receiving to shipping. If your arrows go in numerous different directions, or double backwards in any spots or go in the opposite to the desired direction, then you have determined your inefficient spots.
After you have identified your trouble spots, work to improve access to product destinations, minimize travel distances between destination and source, reduce bottleneck places in the facility and re-vamp any lift truck and high-travel congestion places.
Cross-Docking? For things which rapidly move throughout your facility, consider cross-docking options. The cross-docked inventory is not stored inside the warehouse. It is moved from inbound delivery almost directly to outbound shipping. Some of the consolidation and sorting is normally performed within the shipping areas. The easiest items to cross-dock are usually bar coded products with high inventory carrying expenses and predicable demands.
|
|
