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How Conveyor Belts Helped My Increase My Workforce's Efficiency
I've run a fairly busy warehouse for several years now, stocking everything from food to my current incarnation as a DVD, CD, video game and book storage department for one of the larger online stores. Providing you have the space and staff capable of doing the job, someone will always want to hire your warehouse to store their products; the trick is to always be sure that your staff are efficient and that you have an eye on what the next big thing in online sales will be.
The current boom in online selling took everyone by surprise though - it was always going to be big but with the economy causing many high street stores to shut up shop, more and more people are having to shop online, meaning big money for the company hiring us, and a lot more work for my staff. With the sudden boom, I just didn't have the time to employ more staff to pick up the slack and the workforce I had just couldn't cope with the demand. I needed something quick, and the idea of reorganising the warehouse and installing some conveyor belts came to mind.
Previously, the warehouse worked by having everything in sections: DVDs, games (with subsections for the different consoles), CDs and books and the employee compiling an order would take a basket and pick up each of the components of the order manually, then take it to the packing section who would box it up and put the dispatch address on it; it would then go to a team who were responsible for posting the orders at the end of the day. While it doesn't sound like the most efficient way of doing things in the world, it worked very well until the sudden boost in business, hence why I ordered some conveyor belts and did some restructuring of the dispatch process.
The process of buying and installing the conveyor belts was very simple; far quicker than hiring and training new staff would have been and cheaper in the long term too. After a brief look at organisation with a few of my assistants, we've found a way to ensure that the warehouse is as efficient as possible, without having to retrain our staff too much, meaning that my business suffered very little backlog.
I can't believe I never thought of organising my warehouse with conveyor belts before; they've increased my workforce's efficiency greatly, have saved me the time and effort of finding and training new staff and have cut down on my employees needing to walk around with potentially heavy loads, making this new regime good for everyone involved.
About the Author Thomas Pretty is a business owner with many years of experience organising and running warehouses. Find out more about conveyor belts at http://www.amek.co.uk/
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