Warehouse Improvement through "just do it" continuous improvement projects

Plan, Do, Check, Act... let your warehouse team go for it....don't hold the team back, if they have a great idea (and they normally do as they are the ones generally completing the task) let them implement it.

Obviously there needs to be some "checks and balances" in place, but having a team that's super excited about getting a warehouse continuous improvement project underway, no matter how small or large is something to be celebrated.

Firstly make it clear to the team there is no "silly" ideas within the warehouse team, some will work well, some will not but until the team tries the improvement nobody will know.

The warehouse is full of opportunity and depending on the nature of your business could really impact your bottom line.

A warehouse continuous improvement KPI chart is a good start, this can be discussed daily or weekly at the warehouse toolbox meetings. What's the improvement, who recommended the improvement and the progress of the warehouse improvement project.

Plan the warehouse improvement project with the team, let them run it and own it.

Do the warehouse improvement project (costs, concerns etc etc, are covered at this stage).

Be sure to have accurate and agreed measures and warehouse KPI's in place to ensure the proposed warehouse improvement project is actually an improvement.

After an agreed time frame check the KPIs (numbers) is there an improvement, its at this stage which is the make or break, if there is a clear improvement within the warehouse operations this needs to be celebrated by the team, (tangible rewards work best) with special recognition to the team member who floated the original idea.

If the warehouse continuous improvement idea didn't quite hit the mark then this can either be worked through to understand root cause as to why it didn't provide the improvements agreed or the concept dismissed all together (by the team).

Whether the warehouse improvement concept worked or not, we now have a team engaged on coming up with continuous improvement ideas to improvement business performance... win-win

looking to improve your warehouse and distribution operations team, drop us a line to discuss. www.logisticsconsult.co.nz