Time is money. If your distribution center isn’t running smoothly, you’re losing out. Ensure you’re maximizing efficiency by following our easy tips to ensure no minutes are wasted and costs are reduced. Here are our four best practices to ensure your distribution center is running smoothly.

BE ORGANIZED AND TIDY

Keeping your warehouse or distribution center is the number one way to maintain high productivity. Focus on your floor plan and make sure your warehouse is set up in a logical fashion. Have stations that rely on each other in close proximity. For instance, don’t have your label printer at the opposite end of your building to the packaging stations.

Always keep walkways clear, ensuring there is plenty of space where employees may overlap. Have a designated place for everything; you don’t want potential hazards arising from tools not being correctly stored, and boxes left unmaintained.

PRIORITIZE YOUR BEST SELLERS

Understand which products are being picked off the shelves the most often. It seems pretty straightforward, but it can revolutionize your distribution center. By having the faster-selling items in easy-to-reach locations, you’ll instantly speed up productivity. Just like a supermarket places the most expensive items at eye level, have your best selling products closer to the ground and close to truck bays and workstations.

In some instances, these products may move so quickly it actually wastes time putting them onto shelves. In this case, consider putting these products in a temporary holding area next to employee work stations. When an item is needed, it’s right on hand to be distributed as quickly as possible.

IMPROVE YOUR LIGHTING

Another easy solution! Improve your lighting, and efficiency and safety will start to rise. Employees have to be able to see what they’re doing, and poor lighting will limit that. By installing brighter, well-spaced lighting, you’ll increase visibility across your distribution center, making it easier for employees to select the item they need quickly.

HIRE MORE STAFF

We appreciate that not everybody is in a fortunate position to do this right now, but if you’ve got the money, we’d highly recommend you increase your workforce. One of the most common causes of slow productivity is a distribution being understaffed.

Not only will that degrade overall efficiency, but it also stretches your current employees who are having to do far more than their job description entails. This is likely to lead to high staff turnover. The simplest way to increase your warehouse operations’ productivity is to hire more staff.

Here at Spectra360, we have plenty of resources to help you during your company’s hiring process. As things continue to evolve, we invite you to reach out to our team if you have any questions!