Lean Warehousing
“There are four purposes of improvement: easier, better, faster, and cheaper. These four goals appear in the order of priority.”
Lean Warehousing focuses on increasing value, eliminating waste, and lowering cost. In contrast, Warehousing Value is handling and storing material without damage. People often use the term "lean" for employees wearing multiple hats such as the warehouse manager and the sales, quality, and safety quality manager. While that is lean compared to the past, lean identifies waste as a non-useful task in the operation. Lowering labor and storage costs results from eliminating waste and focusing on value-added steps within the warehouse.
Eight Waste
The eight waste are non-valued added activities that customers aren't willing to pay for. Warehouse Engineers uses the word “Downtime” to remember and eliminate waste:
Value Stream Map/Flow of Material
A value stream map tracks the flow of material from supplier to customer. What makes a value stream map unique is data such as cycle processing and wait times. The value stream map helps identify the "Eight Waste" within the process to increase value, speed, and quality.
5S System/Visual Controls
5S isn't just a good housekeeping system, but the organization and visual controls to eliminate waste. 5S allows all employees, new and veteran, to quickly identify what tools they need for the job. The "30 Second Rule" is a standard that anyone, including visitors, should be able to identify the necessary tools within 30 seconds to complete a task at a workstation. Here's a video on how to start 5S.
Standard Work/Process Development
Standard Work is about helping all employees (below average) reach productivity targets set by management, and continuous improvement from there. Let's say the target is to load a truck in 30 minutes from beginning to end. How does an associate do that? Are there instructions? Is there any pre-work done? Do they have all the tools needed to complete the job?
Kanban/Reorder Points
After implementing 5S and Standard Work, Kanban helps eliminate excess inventory (waste) and prevent stock outs. Kanban signals to management there's an upset condition. Here's a video on how to use Kanban Cards.
Continuous Improvement/Kaizen Events
Lean Warehousing and continuous improvement never stop. It is a culture of continuous improvement where teams are challenged to think of new innovative ideas and methods to make their task easier and faster.
Results
30% reduction in process cycle time by eliminating waste within a value stream map.
5S eliminating 50% of associates handtools.
5S decreasing inventory counting time by 75% (Focused on partial pallets, specialty skus and returns).
Decrease onboarding training by 20% with standard work.
Kanban Reorder Points lower inventory by 20% while decreasing stock outs.