Warehouse Efficiency Improvement - Visualization

Challenge

I am an operations manager that my challenge is to improve the efficiency of warehouse by Lean and  control the budget in line. Due to a small office, there is an only person who is warehouse officer  responding all areas of warehouse and inventory.  The project objectives are Time reduction, Distance  reduction, Cost reduction, Increase capacity and Safety Workplace Environment.

Selection

I selected to use the tool of Visualization to deep understand of problems, actual workflow, clarify  unknows, explore and get the agreement among my team and management.

Application

I prepared the current process flow chart, the current layout and also put all existing materials in the  current layout to understand the current efficiency, moreover, drafted the proposed layout that easy to  explain what is need by management,  then conduct informal discussion with the warehouse guy.

Use the current process flow chart and the current layout as “Layout 1” and “Layout 2” for the proposed  layout comparing distance between layout 1 and Layout 2, so it’s easy to discuss together with warehouse  guy what is needed by management, what are the problem and what we can do.

After discussion with the layouts and details of the budget, we can draw the new layout and listed the  material & tools for the efficiency improvement in line with the budget control and safety concerned.

When we use the material by visualization that is easy to deep understand of the people involved, then  we can explore and get the agreement as win-win situation.

Insight & Approach

When I applied to use the visualization tool is very useful and easy to convince the operator to  understanding the management objective. Our team identified the problems and solved the solution well.  The other side, it’s convenience to escalating and discussion with management team. We can use this  tools in everyday (both in work and life).

