7 real production improvements and ideas in warehousing and distribution

This all began with my self education of Kaizen. The concept Kaizen is known to promote continuous improvement in all functions and involve all employees.

While expanding my knowledge of Kaizen and looking towards my teams own continuous improvement I have developed a list of my current top 7 production improvements in warehousing and distribution that have worked for me. (Why 7? Honestly, I didn't want this to extend too long. I wanted to do more, but this gives me the option to possibly use those for another article.) As my heading says these are real, and they work.

1: Exchange ideas. Have a best practice meeting between your departments, and any others your associated with. If applicable and you have other distribution centers, use that to your advantage and exchange ideas on a larger scale of what has worked for you, and ideas of what you want to try in the future. Maybe focus on two or three departments per month and group the departments by processes. Observe the differences and go from there. Once you covered them all, go around again.

2: The "Power Zone". The way this is usually introduced is in safety when discussing properly lifting and lowering. It is the area from your finger tips, to your knees to your shoulders. If you have a picking portion, or put away process in your industry, incorporating using the power zone is a must. Relay to your put away team to put away in this area first. Pickers will get to the product faster, and the orders will get out the door faster. Also, utilize this with your orders for pickers as much as you can. If using a picking cart, keep the larger orders in easy to reach areas.

3: Bar codes. As much as possible, use bar code technology. If you do not have the 3 of 9 font in your drop down in Word, look into getting it or a variation of a program to make bar codes. If you are not computer savvy, reach out to your IT department, and get it done!

4: Employee feedback. A great place to get ideas towards improvements are from the experts. These are the ones who do these processes everyday. Listen closely to what they have to say. I try to get involved when possible in the processes first hand to also see where we can do better.

5: Effective communication, (This is a big one, get comfy). Struggles I have observed:

• E-mails not getting sent to all the necessary recipients
• Occasional lack of communication between shifts
• Minimal knowledge to the team regarding company news

E-mails not being sent to all the intended recipients sounds pretty common. What I see as helpful is having distribution lists setup. For example, for quality issues I instituted a QC distribution list. Anything quality related that needs to be relayed between shifts goes to this list. These are our QC 's on both shifts, and all departments. Rather then trying to back track who to send information to, I send it to that list and it's done.

A lack of communication between shifts can be minimized substantially by having regular shift hand offs. With shift hand offs you will hopefully see constructive, honest, direct feedback. I would suggest when starting this have leadership send these to their Management first for review before going to their counterparts just to ensure things are being addressed tactfully.

With company news, keep the startups, (or morning meetings) lively and productive. In my situation, the start of the shifts are usually when the team comes in from just rolling out of bed. As we are not in production, I often have some lively music playing before the shift. When the shift starts and we are ready to roll, I have notes to relay that I had prepared from the day before. I'm well prepared, and the team is alert. After I relay these notes I have them saved and stored on our common drive for everyone to reference. This ensures we are covering productive information, and gives us a location to gather ideas from each other of more fuel for the start of shift.

6: Employee recognition. Don't forget about the value of saying thank you. Whether you express gratitude because you feel good or you feel good because you express gratitude, the bottom line is that you feel good. If you read earlier about saving your notes you relay to the team, I would suggest reviewing those every now and then and seeing just how often you are thanking them for their contribution. My example of continual praise is our team utilizing our open door policy. I want to thank them often for this. Because they see me as approachable and there to help them, we are able to succeed consistently.

7: Minimize in-direct labor. A thorough analysis of your processes is where you may see there are portions of in-direct labor that are being measured incorrectly, and negatively affecting production. Keep an eye out for how much time you are allotting to housekeeping, meetings, 5Sing, training, and any other indirect functions. With accurate tracking, and minimization of those in-directs when possible, you can run a tight and efficient shift.

Please feel free to like, share or comment (Positive or negative; seriously. I feel even negative commentary can be positive as it promotes dialogue). This is just a few concepts, do you have any to add?