Getting your products out and keeping clients happy doesn’t necessarily mean you are running an efficient warehouse. Moreover, the other factors to consider are:

The people you employ,
Training for your staff,
Process and procedures of the business, and as well as
Your systems.

1. Adapt to the seasons. 

Your most popular SKUs are likely to change with the seasons, re-arrange your warehouse space to accommodate the seasonal activity. So by adopting this seasonal activity, ensures that your SKUs are in the appropriate location, reducing unnecessary travel and time-wasting for your order pickers.

2. Review your picking methodology.

Make sure you're picking methodology that suits your business. The correct picking methodology is essential for maximising productivity, review your customer orders. After that, create a method based on the results that work for your business and team.

3. Review your storage equipment to ensure its best application.

Placing slow-moving, low-cube items in bin shelving and fast-moving items in carton/pallet flow — or other appropriate storage options, consequently will improve storage density and picker productivity.

4. Consider minimising shipping cartons.

If you can limit the shipping boxes to two or three standard sizes to choose from (plus a few custom sizes if necessary), this will reduce the time for your pickers when putting orders together. This can also assist with reducing freight costs and also supports your picking methodology.

5. Is automation an option?

Pickers can spend more than half their time walking or moving products around. In summary, research some automated solutions to save time and increase productivity.

6. Keep up with technology.

In a constantly changing world of technology, there is a multitude of options created to increase efficiency, from barcodes to voice-activated technologies. As a result, these technologies are designed to provide different levels of increased picking productivity and improved accuracy.

7. Incentivise and reward your team.

Recognition and reward lead to loyalty and better performance from your staff. Likewise, make sure that you measure productivity fairly, set milestones and KPI’s to create more enthusiasm and healthy competition.