Warehouse Productivity
The need to find find a better balance between productivity, efficiency and safety.
Optimizing the workflow, key to productivity increase.
Warehouse productivity
The Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply recently put together a Top 5 challenges list for the industry and the number one was clearly related to warehouse accidents (*) linked to the way warehouses have been set up. They indicated the importance of the warehouse layout and the way supply flows are optimized. Every warehouse and production site is different and they often have not been set up with safety in mind but rather how much storage can be created. If not done as yet, companies should revisit their warehouse and production site set-up to find a better balance between productivity, efficiency and safety so all stand to benefit from a better but safer throughput.
Understanding the flow of goods for higher efficiency.
For companies to create a higher degree of efficiency, they need to understand how the flow of goods throughout the warehouse area and the production floor are managed but also how pedestrians move around in that same location. The need for faster turn-arounds brings along extra challenges which means that warehouses and production sites need to go for a multiple approach, consider slow and fast moving goods, distances between the shipping area(s) where goods arrive and leave, etc…
The work floor, how it is managed, how it is set up and how people and vehicles interact is clearly one of the biggest challenges companies face, how to make the work floor a safer and more productive place to work and can both really be combined?
A clear analysis leads to better productivity.
Warehouse productivity
In order to better understand we need to know. Before we know we need to measure and that is the most critical aspect before creating more efficiency on the workfloor.
What are the busiest areas, what are the potential risks, what is the average driving speed, what type of incidents, etc.. are the main elements we need to understand. Let’s not forget the training and education aspect. How do we make sure our employees get trained on how they should drive safely, how to understand what the different alerts mean, what are the areas reserved to pedestrians, vehicles, parking, etc… a lot of questions of which the answers can be derived from the data that is generated by the systems installed at the warehouse and production sites.
Data allows the warehouse and production site operator to understand what is truly happening, where the focus should lie and thus undertake the necessary measures to further improve overall safety, further train employees and also revisit the lay out and set up of his key sites. This is where Essensium can help.
Most of our customers rely on Essensium to help them to create safer work places not only because of the wide expertise we have gained over the past 15 years but also through the performance based analytics we produce around every environment where we have implemented the Essensium Positioning System.
In a true partnership with our customers we use the data to make further improvements, set up training programs but also support any changes that need to be made to the Positioning System to meet the ever changing organizational changes at customers.
Efficiency is key and having access to the right data and expertise helps any warehouse and production site to keep its finger on the pulse when it comes to creating the best performing logistics site(s).
(*) https://www.cips.org/supply-management/opinion/2022/february/the-five-biggest-challenges-for-warehouse-management/
