If you have not read our blog on Why My Mom Would Have Been a Great Warehouse Manager, you may want to review it quickly. As the article points out, I confessed I was a former slob. While growing up it was ingrained in me to keep my room, our house and car clean. Thank goodness this finally paid off.
Now let’s look at some basics of why this is so important.
Inventory Visibility
The other day I just could not stand my boyfriend’s side of the closet. There were shoes piled up (not neatly matched) a mountain of clothes (dirty or clean … not sure) and low and behold three Frisbees. Frisbees are not the most expensive items on earth but it would have been nice to know we had inventory on hand before we bought another one prior to our last family vacation.
Yep sounds simple but keeping things clean provides you a great amount of visibility within your operations. Visibility in turn means saving money and time.
A Sense of Pride in Your Workplace
Years ago I listened to a sermon in Church and one of the main points was “Learn to take care of what you have.” The pastor mentioned if you have a beat up Junker that takes you from point A to Point B, wash it, change the oil and make it as nice as possible. He went on to say if you take pride in what you have; eventually you will earn something nicer. This is a concept I firmly believe in.
Now think about this:
What if you have a potential customer stop by to view your operations?
What if that customer came by on a bad day when the floors were filthy or you had inventory everywhere?
This is pretty simple but first impressions are everything and yes they translate into business and profitability.
Maintaining Your Facility and Equipment Makes Things Work Better
When I was a little kid we went camping often. My Father who was a Military Man was pretty strict on how we set up the camp site. One of my jobs was to sweep the area we were pitching a tent on. At four years old I did not comprehend the need for this. In fact I grumbled a little because I wanted to run and play.
Years later as a teen, a group of us went camping. We haphazardly packed for the trip and got to the site really late. None of us champions remembered a flashlight and so in the light of our car headlights we pitched a tent as fast as possible minus any “prep”. What a horrible night. We might as well have slept directly on the rocks.
See my picture? Maintaining your facilities and equipment simply helps keep things working better and longer!
Here Are 2 Simple Cleaning and Maintenance Tips:
1.) Build Cleaning Into Your Employee’s Schedule.
This can occur before their shift, at a scheduled time or at the end. Make sure to designate the specific employees responsible for this. One of our customers assigns a specific zone in their warehouse to specific personnel. If you have not read Why My Mom Would Have Been a Great Warehouse Manager, please do. If your day happens to have a slow spot, that’s also an ideal time to clean and organize.
2.) Make Sure to Take Care of Aisles, Docks and Floors
Make sure you properly throw away (preferably recycle) all unused boxes, used packaging materials and trash! Sweep and Mop your floors on a daily basis. Have a proper spot not just for your inventory but for additional items such as manuals, tools etc.
3.) Clean your machinery and make sure to keep everything maintained.
Preventive maintenance saves thousands of dollars on unexpected shut downs, production, expensive repairs and more.
