Warehouse is the heart of wholesale distribution system. It is the place where the goods first arrive, stored, packed, and then transported to various outlets for sale. Keeping track of the inventory in constant motion can make or break the entire business. Errors in warehouse operation can undermine operations resulting in customer dissatisfaction and financial disaster, a sure death knell for business.

Improving Warehouse Productivity:

Efficient warehousing operations are vital to a firm competitiveness in today’s global environment. Industrial operations management techniques can be gainfully employed to optimize your operations and maintain high productivity levels.

• Process Optimization: As businesses evolve, a number of inefficiencies get embedded in the processes and systems of the firm. Make a deliberate effort to constantly review the processes involved in your operations and carry out optimization. Focus on efficiency and eliminate delays and bottlenecks that hamper workflow and increase processing time. This helps in reducing operating costs, improved capacity utilization and improved quality and service levels.

• Training: It is very important to train employees for achieving and sustaining productivity levels. It yields consistent results and improves the product quality. Trained employees follow proper methods and procedures while doing their tasks. This leads to higher productivity levels. More importantly, these levels are then sustained over time. In addition, it provides management with an effective tool to evaluate associates who have been brought up to common level by training.

• Labor Standards: Measuring multiple variable work functions evolves these standards. Working with operators who perform these tasks on a daily basis, engineers carry out time studies and workload information to calculate completion rates of various tasks. Productivity standards for various work functions are then compiled. This is much better than having standards based on theoretical calculations. It is a good performance measurement tool and forms a valid basis for feedback and implementation of incentive programs.

• Productivity Reporting: This is an essential part of any operation and provides managers with essential quantifiable data about the efficiencies of the system. It forms the basis of all activities to sustain productivity over time. A productivity tracking system is generally put in place, it generates reports, and data that are used to evaluate performance, implement incentive programs and monitor productivity. The software has the capability to provide operational performance data across various departments/ functions down to individual employees. It is particularly useful as the charts and graphs outputted by the system give a graphic view of the health of the operation.