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 main objective is to be able to reduce lift truck time and travel distance in specific ways which truly help prevent equipment abuse and product damage. Several of the most frequent efficiency barriers to many warehouses are discussed below.
New product lines are stored where there is extra space, not necessarily where it makes the most sense. Regularly handled objects are separated due to size or to storage handling requirements. Because of increased business, Stock-Keeping Units or SKUs have proliferated. Replenishment and order-picking speeds are reduced because of poor lighting. The forklift fleet is very small and more round trips are required using the same machine. Lift trucks face slowdowns and detours due to poor equipment maintenance and uneven floor surfaces. Ineffective warehouse layout usually leads to unproductive workflows and dead-end aisles.
If any of the above issues seem familiar at your place of work, or if you know ways to be more effective overall, there are 3 main areas to concentrate 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 offer a single direction, well-organized flow from receiving to shipping. If your arrows double backwards in any spots or go in the opposite to the desired direction or go in numerous different directions, then you have determined your inefficient spots.
When you have identified your trouble spots, work to improve access to product destinations, reduce travel distances between source and destination, lessen bottleneck places within the facility and re-vamp any lift truck and high-travel congestion places.
Cross-Docking? For objects which rapidly move throughout your facility, consider cross-docking options. The cross-docked inventory is not stored in 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 things to cross-dock are typically bar coded products with predicable demands and high inventory carrying costs.
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