A good traveler has no
fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.
Lao Tzu
Travelling in distribution and manufacturing environments is
the enemy of efficiency. Traveling
wastes time, creates workload imbalances and increases the cost of product manufacturing
and distribution. Traveling is deceptive
since it sometimes appear to be necessary to get the job done.
When we talk about traveling in the manufacturing plant or
the distribution center, it usually involves manually transporting product from
one value added process to another or picking items, walking along a designated
pick path. Since it’s only human to want
to communicate with each other, walking past our fellow associates without
sharing a how the weekend went or how your fantasy football team did is
irresistible. So what do we do about
time wasted socializing? How do we
increase productivity without being the communication police?
While it is difficult to keep our team from excessively
discussing the news of the day, it is easy to identify how we can reduce the
opportunities for travelling.
·
Assign pick zones or areas of responsibility so
your order pickers have less reason to walk the floor
·
Employ “goods to you” systems such as carousels,
mini-load systems, tote or case shuttle systems
·
Employ picking systems such as pick to voice or
pick to light that tend to engage the picker, reducing the slack time between
picks
·
Convey products from one value added process to
another as conveyors don’t speak with each other or at least they don’t
verbally
·
Use Human Machine Interface software to
graphically depict your automation systems so you may identify jams,
malfunctions and safety issues
·
Employ automatic scales, tapers, labeling
systems and manifesting to keep personnel congestion to a minimum
Most of our associates are generally hard-working, dedicated
and loyal. We need them to successfully
manufacture and distribute the products that allow us to grow and be
profitable. However, we are social
beings and we need systems and an environment that reduces distractions,
promoting focus on our respective tasks.
Are your associates travelling?
