Even if there are many businesses that start employees in the receiving area, they would be much better off to allot professionals to handle the put-away tasks. Qualified individuals who truly understand and know the products seldom mix objects that are similar in appearance but are quite different and they truly know how to stock bins and shelves properly and thus, work a lot more efficiently.
It is a good idea if you have new staff to start them out by filling orders. This provides them with a great chance to know the products, paperwork and customers along with any electronic inventory system which can take some getting used to. Additionally, it is easy to check their effectiveness by going over their work orders once they are packed for shipment.
The next suggestion is to schedule the truck arrival, as you truly do not want all trucks to arrive at the same time. By being organized and planning arrivals, you would eliminate pressure on receivers and shippers and also eliminate excessive waiting time in the yard. The more efficiently you could plan the arrival of your trucks, the less dock doors you would need to work that will save you a lot of money on utilities in the long run.
Work with different shifts for shipping and receiving. If you are able to, receive goods in one shift and separate your shipping to another shift. Organizing yourself in this way can enable you to reduce the staging area requirements by 50 percent. You may also be able to eliminate time-wasting bottlenecks within the warehouse. As well, by separating your shipping and receiving, you would know which shift to look over if any discrepancies happen down the road and can keep track of orders more efficiently.
If the unloading process is sped up, this would really help you out as the unloaded truck can congest your yard. Based on studies, roughly 60 percent of mass merchants could unload trucks in under 60 minutes, whereas approximately 20 to 30 percent of the grocery business performs at a similar standard. Make time to observe and time operations to be able to see how your facility measures up overall.
Maintain your floors because any defects in the floor's surface can cause a lift truck operator to slow down or take a detour. The uneven floors can really reduce efficiency. Potholes or uneven floors or deteriorating floor section seams also result in wheel wear and vehicle damage. In certain cases, floors which are really damaged could result in product damage and loads tipping.