When you improve your material handling operations you boost workplace efficiency.

Looking for ways to further streamline and improve efficiency in your operation? Here are five best practices to improve material handling productivity in your warehouse.

1. Schedule truck arrivals

Eliminate excessive waiting time in the yard and unneeded pressure on receivers and shippers.
The more efficient your truck arrival schedule, the fewer dock doors you’ll need to operate which can save you money on utilities and having workers being unproductive.

2. Consider using different shifts for shipping and receiving

You can reduce your staging area requirements by half by receiving goods during one shift and shipping goods during another. This allows for one team to do one job more efficiently.

3. Keep floors clear and maintained

Defects in the floor’s surface can cause reduced productivity because forklift operators need to slow down for safety. Uneven or deteriorating floors can also cause wheel wear and damage to your forklift. Also, floor defects can lead to loads tipping, employee injury or product damage.

4. Improve packing operations

Maintaining a consistent workflow so packing operations don’t fluctuate between dead periods and rush hour activity keeps your warehouse efficient. Make sure packers get complete orders – they shouldn’t have to be looking for a missing item.

Take the time to observe their activities, do they have enough space to work comfortably without running into each other or tripping over boxes? If you see problems, it may be that your order picking process is not operating effectively and needs updating.

5. Ask forklift operators for their input

Ask your forklift operators how their day-to-day tasks can be improved. You’ll be surprised by the good ideas they come up with.

Observe your best forklift operators to discover their process tricks. Have those operators show others how to save time and be more efficient.