Some companies might choose to use new employees in the shipping and receiving area, although they may be better served to assign professionals to deal with these difficult jobs. Experienced people who really understand and know the products seldom mix things which may look the same but are quite different and they know how to stock bins and shelves correctly and thus, work a lot more efficiently.
The best suggestion for new staff is to start them out filling orders. This provides them with an excellent opportunity to know the products, paperwork and clients along with any electronic inventory system which might take some getting used to. Moreover, it is very easy to check their effectiveness by going over their work orders when they are packed for delivery.
Because you do not want to have lots of trucks arriving at the same time, the next step is to plan truck arrival. By being organized and scheduling arrivals, you would eliminate too much waiting time in the yard and also eliminate pressure on shippers and receivers. The more effectively you can plan the arrival of your trucks, the less dock doors you will have to work which will save you a lot of money on utilities in the long run.
Work with different shifts for shipping and receiving. If you can, receive goods in one shift and separate your shipping to a different shift. Organizing yourself in this manner could allow you to reduce the staging area needs by 50%. You may also be able to get rid of time-wasting bottlenecks in the warehouse. What's more, by separating your shipping and receiving, you could keep track of orders more efficiently and will know which shift to look over if any discrepancies happen down the road.
Speed up the process of unloading. This would really help you out since the longer a truck sits at your door for unloading or loading, the more congested your yard could become. Based on studies, roughly 60 percent of mass merchants could unload trucks in less than an hour, while around 20 to 30 percent of the grocery industry works at a similar standard. Take time to watch and time operations in order to see exactly how your facility measures up overall.
Maintain your floors as any defects in the floor's surface can cause a lift truck operator to take a detour or slow down. The uneven floors can really decrease production. Deteriorating floor section seams or uneven floors or potholes also result in wheel wear and vehicle damage. In some cases, floors which are really damaged can lead to product damage and loads tipping.