The individuals who study warehouse efficiency have found that approximately 50 to 60 percent of travel time is wasted in the majority of material handling facilities. The main goal is to reduce lift truck time and travel distance in specific ways that help avoid damage to products and equipment abuse. Some of the most common efficiency barriers to many warehouses are discussed below.
The new products will not always be placed where it makes the most sense, these products are often stored where there is extra room. The frequently handled items are separated due to size or to storage handling requirements. Due to increased business, Stock-Keeping Units or also called SKUs have proliferated. Replenishment and order-picking speeds are lessened due to bad 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 because of poor equipment maintenance and uneven floor surfaces. Ineffective warehouse design usually causes inefficient workflows and dead-end aisles.
There are 3 main areas to concentrate on if any of the above issues seem familiar at your workplace, or if you are aware of ways to be much more effective overall:
Storage, Shipping and Receiving Layout: Utilize a facility layout and draw a series of arrows reflecting the way your product flows. 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 areas.
Work to improve access to product destinations, reduce travel distances between source and destination, reduce bottleneck areas once you have identified your trouble spots. This could be done by re-vamping any forklift and high-travel congestion areas.
What is cross-docking? Consider cross-docking options for things which rapidly move throughout your facility. The cross-docked inventory is not stored in the warehouse. It is transported from inbound delivery almost directly to outbound shipping. Some of the sorting and consolidation is often done within the shipping areas. The simplest objects to cross-dock are typically bar coded products with predicable demands and high inventory carrying expenses.
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