Whether a large industrial warehouse or a small stockroom for day to day stock picking, businesses feel the pressure of reducing labour cost and increase the material handling efficiency with innovative steps. In order to resolve this issue, more and more companies are manufacturing new material handling equipment that not only saves time but the labour cost in the most effective manner.
Though it makes sense to focus on the material handling speed rather than reducing the labour cost as both go hand in hand still there are organizations that have reduced the labour cost by adding such equipment to the warehouse. Any material handling equipment will work better if your staff knows the easiest tricks, and ideas to get the most out of it, maintaining the safety and quality of the stock.
Material Handling Tools for Your Stock Picking Needs:
Cargo Lifts: For stock picking or constructional material handling, these cargo lifts can be used as a safe and fast component that lifts and transports the stock. Available in different weight capacities, designs, as well as shapes, these lifts have made the stock-picking much easier than ever before.
Platform Trolleys: Recently, almost every warehouse has been considering its customized platform trolleys, which can carry any type of loads from one place to another. This has reduced the stock damage and accidents, to a great extent especially in industrial warehouses, where expensive tools and equipment are difficult to lift and transport. All platform trolleys are ergonomically designed, for maximum weight handling in a safe manner.
Hand Pallet Truck: Also known as industrial trucks, these are among the most useful material handling and stock lifting equipment for any type of warehouse. For warehouses that usually trade in large qualities of materials, and heavy-duty loads on a daily basis, hand pallet trucks are must avoid accidents and stock damage, by traditional stock picking.
There are so many features included with them, such as noise reduction, less time consumption and quick fit features to evaluate the loads etc. that you don't have to keep checking if the trucks are able to move or not.
Automatic guided vehicles: A bit expensive for smaller warehouses, but one of the most innovative materials handling equipment designed to move large quantity stock with ease. These are mobile robot vehicles that follow wires to move the materials and run by automatic guided instructions.
Now, even if you have bought such equipment for better material handling at your warehouse, you will still need smart working to utilize the features that reduce labour cost.
Here are some useful tips for effective stock picking:
Limit the Staff: Here, by limiting staff refers to limit the number of hands that work in the stock-picking area, and shipment checking departments. By doing this, you will not only minimize the human errors, but you will see how efficiently the staff has been working with the advanced stock-picking equipment, for transporting the stock from start to finish.
Smart Organization: To increase the efficiency of your warehouse, make sure you plan how to store everything in an organized manner. For instance, slotting helps reduce the chances of any accidents, stock damage and improve the space arability. Make sure you know how to categorize different sections without mixing SKUs.
While picking the stock, the most common mistakes worker make is to pick the incorrect item and then repeat the entire process of transporting, picking and placing. Thus, it is better to review the storage strategies at your warehouse before placing them together.
Cut the Travel Tine: Apart from using a platform trolley or industrial trucks, at the warehouse, the best thing you can do is to group all the high-volume SKUs together, in the same section. This area should be designed for easy accommodation so that the time of material pickings easily gets reduced.
Use Automated Material Handling Equipment: While picking and adjusting the stock, workers devote almost 60 % of their total time of material handling in moving ad walking the product around. Hence, it would be a great solution if you choose automated vehicles, managed by a single person for the transportation of the stock. This not only saves the energy of your staff but gives you a faster process of safe material handling.
Keep it Level: Most of the industry experts have been suggesting this for years that the more you level up the stock, according to their usage; the more it gets easier to manage the inventory. The product kept on the ground level can be accommodated easily as compared to stock kept vertically. So, if you want to boost the productivity, keep lower volume items stored vertically and the high-frequency items at the ground level.
If you prefer having a big staff with multiple departments for your warehouse, then it is better to not invest in automated vehicles as equipment such as a hand pallet truck or platform trolley with warehouse staircases would be very helpful for your staff for better material handling. Just make sure you are stocking the inventory in the right way.
Talking about high-quality material handling equipment, Abazar Shelving has been providing the best warehouse storage solution to its clients all over the UAE.
