Individuals who have studied efficiency 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 minimize lift truck time and travel distance in certain ways that really help avoid product damage and machine abuse. Several of the most frequent efficiency barriers to many warehouses are discussed below.
The new products will not always be positioned where it makes the most sense, these products are normally stored wherever there is extra space. The frequently handled objects are separated due to storage handling requirements or to size. Because of increased business, SKUs or Stock-Keeping Units have proliferated. Replenishment and order-picking speeds are lessened because of bad lighting. The lift truck fleet is very small and a lot more round trips are required utilizing the same machine. Lift trucks face slowdowns and detours due to uneven floor surfaces and poor machine maintenance. Inefficient warehouse layout often causes ineffective workflows and dead-end aisles.
There are 3 main areas to focus on if any of the mentioned concerns seem familiar at your workplace, or if you are aware of ways to be more effective overall:
Storage, Shipping and Receiving Layout: Use a facility layout and draw a series of arrows that reflect the way your product flows. The best facilities provide 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 destination and source, reduce bottleneck areas when you have identified your trouble spots. This can be done by re-vamping any forklift and high-travel congestion areas.
What is cross-docking? Consider cross-docking options for items that quickly move throughout your facility. The cross-docked inventory is not stored in the warehouse. It is moved from inbound delivery almost directly to outbound shipping. Some of the sorting and consolidation is normally performed in the shipping areas. The simplest objects to cross-dock are typically bar coded products with high inventory carrying expenses and predicable demands.
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