The fundamentals of best practices in the warehouse

By Bob Trebilcock, Editor at Large -- Modern Materials Handling, 1/31/2006

All too often, companies look in all the wrong places to begin improving their warehouse operations. Rather than taking a close look at the fundamentals or basics of top performing warehouses, managers look for some other silver bullet.

John Hill, a principal at the consulting firm Esync (419-842-2210), identifies five areas and best practices in each to get you started. As you read through them, says Hill, don’t underestimate the value of these basics.

• Facility: A clean, well-lighted warehouse with rigorously maintained equipment used for its intended purpose directly reflects on management and is a solid indicator of workforce attitude and morale.
• Staffing: Continuous training, performance reporting and achievement recognition, as well as attention to safety and ergonomics say a lot about a company’s concern for its employees and commitment to building an environment that enables exceptional performance.
• Materials and data flow: Is there a lack of correlation between the two that affects inventory accuracy, space and labor utilization, order fulfillment and shipping efficiency?Layout, process and system modifications can help here.
• Processes and disciplines: What have you done to minimize the number of times products are handled and re-handled?Are processes well defined and documented?Did employees have a hand in developing them?Are they regularly reviewed to identify opportunities for streamlining?
• Tools and systems: What are you doing to minimize paperwork and travel times?Do your systems simplify or impede operator task execution?

Regardless of your company’s size or available capital, getting it right in these areas will take you a long way towards improving performance.Moreover, when the timing is right, it will help you to set the stage for reasoned deployment of those technologies and systems that will further fine-tune and optimize your operations.

In the next two stories, we take a look at best practices that will allow you to leverage your workforce and improve your information systems.