02/27/2010

Stock at point of use

When reviewing the layout of organizations its surprising how many still rely on the centralized stores where team members act like palace guards protecting inventory like it’s the crown jewels – placing stock a the point of use does not only empower operators by providing effective access to materials but techniques such as Direct Line Feed or utilizing stock supermarkets can bring significant improvement in waiting times as the central stores no longer acts as a bottleneck - consider drawing a spaghetti diagram to see how much travel time gets wasted in collecting and distributing inventory! Storing inventory at point of use is not without issues – space and restocking processes being the most prominent – but when reviewing the layout of manufacturing facilities – proper consideration should be given to see what improvement could be made from utilizing these techniques.
Feb 27, 2010 4:38:23 PM | Business Improvement

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