Your budget this year is even tighter than last year's was. Your bosses are expecting you to have the warehouse performing at peak efficiency, using the workers and equipment you already have. Can this actually be done?

It can. Here is a step-by-step guide.

Establish Objectives

Before you can start making improvements to your warehouse efficiency, you need to determine what it means for your operation and how you are going to measure it. The objectives should support the company and/or division's business goals. Examples include:

• Improve pick/put away times
  
  
• Make efficiency improvements to the warehouse layout
  
  
• Increase inventory accuracy
  
  
• Assess all processes for efficiency and effectiveness
  
  
• Move away from a paper system to an automated one
  
  
• Increase warehouse safety

The exact objectives you should adopt will depend on your operation and your business objectives. They should be well considered.

Implement Actions

With your objectives in mind, what actions can you start to take? The actions you choose should be in direct support of your objectives. Here are some examples to get you started:

• Update existing warehouse management software systems.
  
  
• Rearrange the warehouse by bringing 20% of the top products closer to the picking area. This should help decrease pick times.
  
  
• Use cycle counts to improve inventory accuracy.
  
  
• Adopt a new pick technique to maximize efficiency. Depending on your business needs, you might choose to pick by customer, product, route, or shipping date.
  
  
• Cross train staff on multiple roles.This helps employees gain an understanding of how the entire operation works. It also gives them the opportunity to gain new skills.
  
  
• Put a full safety program into place. This can include regular training sessions, routine inspections, and other things to decrease safety incidents.

Review the Results

How are you going to know if the actions you have taken are getting you any results? This is where the benchmarking comes into play. Every change you make should be measured against where things were before you made the change.

Take the average pick times, for example. You should know what the average was before you implement a new picking technique or new picking routes. That way you can measure if there were any improvements after the change or not. This will also tell you if the change caused things to get worse instead of better.

Do It Over and Over Again

You make a change and measure its effectiveness. Then what do you do? You do it again. Make another change, measure its effect. Make another change, etc, etc, etc. Objectives may change on occasion, but the process of making changes and measuring their effects will not.

This will give you a continuous process of improvement that will give you more efficiency with time.

With this guide, you can begin a continuous process of improvement. From upgrading your warehouse management software to ensuring your picking process is as smooth as possible, these are the steps you can take to improve your warehouse efficiency. What objectives do you want to start with?