Richard AgamaIf you want to improve the operations of your business, you’re going to need to optimize your products, traditional processes, and the back-end side of operations. More specifically, you must rethink the way your warehouse works. Read on to learn some easy changes you can make to improve warehouse productivity.
Warehouse Layout
This change may be more difficult than others, but it is well worth it. When you started your business, you had no idea what it would look like in the future. Because of this, it was hard to plan the layout of your warehouse initially, and things mostly ended up where they were first brought in. Then, steadily, as your business grew, the warehouse turned into a labyrinth of different pallets, equipment, and products.
You’ll need to do a lot of work to optimize your warehouse’s layout, but if you think about efficiency and where everything needs to go, you can streamline the space. Doing this makes the warehouse much more functional and productive, and it makes it simpler for everyone working in it as well.
Pay Attention to Your Equipment
In a warehouse, you likely use a lot of different equipment. You have scanners, packaging equipment, machines, forklifts, and other equipment. To make things in the warehouse more productive, you’ll need to give these pieces of equipment some more attention.
Ensure maintenance is a regular part of your daily schedule, and be sure to also invest in the best equipment possible. For example, to increase your forklift battery’s lifespan, you can create a forklift charging station, but you can also invest in stronger batteries that hold more charge for longer. Minor changes like these can have a monumental impact when you make them in conjunction with other changes across the warehouse.
Follow Your Stock
One significant barrier that many warehouses run into is the lack of stock. To create your product, you have to build it, which requires equipment and the pieces that make up your product. For example, if you made frozen pizzas, you’d need a certain amount of cheese, crusts, sauce, and toppings; if you run out of cheese, you’d have to cease all production.
It’s not easy to manage massive amounts of inventory when making your product, especially since you probably have more to keep track of than the four ingredients it takes to make a pizza. Keep a watchful eye over your stock so you never need to stop production because you’re running low on one item.
Some of these changes you can make for your warehouse productivity are easier than others, but that doesn’t mean you should stay away from the difficult ones. It will be hard to experiment with some of these changes, but if you play around with them and find what works best with your warehouse, you’ll be satisfied!
