Operational Audit

Benefits of An Operational Audit

KMH helps companies in many industries review how the organization’s management and its operating procedures are functioning with respect to their effectiveness and efficiency in meeting stated objectives.  Going through the operational audit process provides a company with objective opinions. Those opinions often generate quicker production or sales turnaround, better allocation of costs, improved control systems, the location of areas of delay and an overall streamlined workflow.

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Sortation Conveyor

Selecting The Best Sortation System

A sortation system (sorter) is an integrated material handling conveyor system that automatically diverts product to a conveyor or chute for delivery to other areas of the DC including put-away, consolidation, replenishment, picking, audit, and outbound shipments. A sorter usually is chosen when the required speed and accuracy of an operation are too great to compensate for with manual labor.

Selecting a sortation systems depends on several factors. It is recommended to invest a significant amount of time to understand the entire process and to interview all work areas and levels of operation. The following questions, however, will typically help narrow the options for a shipping sorter, and you can also schedule a free Operational Audit with KMH to have one of our Team members help you assess your facility and operational needs.

What are the goals? Specify the needs among speed, accuracy, reducing human touches, freeing up floor space, process changes, building expansion, etc.

What are the product characteristics (dimensions, weights and types)?

Is the product trucked by pallet load, individual cartons or in another fashion?

Will cartons be shrink-wrapped or have other reflective properties? This adds complexity to the system’s equipment selection such as scanners and photo eye.

Does each individual carton have a readable (via inline scanner) bar code and where is the bar code located on the product?

What is the average weight and the maximum weight of the product? This will affect equipment selection and/or drive size requirements.

How many cartons need to be conveyed and sorted across a specific amount of time? Simple math provides the average throughput rate required for the system.

If it is a shipping sortation system, how many dock doors will the sorter feed? 

Can this quantity of doors accept the volume of product being delivered by the sorter?

What is the anticipated growth of operations?

These key questions will narrow the applicable sortation options so one can begin understanding the rough cost.   An example would be a distribution center that receives truckloads of unsorted boxes of shoes and sorts them onto pallets by style, size, width, and color. A sortation system can identify and sort based on the desired characteristic to a specific location so they can eventually be consolidated onto a pallet for further processing or storage.

“A place for everything and everything in its place” is a philosophy nowhere more applicable than when you’re overseeing a distribution center (DC). Your DC can thrive at top speeds with the proper sorting systems in place.

Operational Audit

Making Your Business More Efficient & Profitable

Operational Audit is a systematic review of effectiveness, efficiency and economy of operation. Operational audit is a future-oriented, systematic, and independent evaluation of organizational activities.

Objectives

  1. Appraise the effectiveness and efficiency of a division, activity, or operation of the entity in meeting organizational goals.
  2. Understand the responsibilities and risks faced by an organization.
  3. Identify, with management participation, opportunities for improving control.
  4. Provide senior management of the organization with a detailed understanding of the result

Advantages

In addition to making the business more efficient and profitable in the long run.

An operational audit almost always provides a company with some new, fresh perspectives.

It makes executives aware of problems that might not have been found otherwise and lets them evaluate risks for the future.

Managers also can use results to motivate employees, as the company always has something to work toward to improve desired results.

Areas to Evaluate

  1. Warehouse Layout
  2. Product/Inventory/Orders processing\
  3. Receiving
  4. Storing
  5. Material Handling Equipment
  6. Housekeeping
  7. Safety
  8. Inventory Control Systems at the end of the process.

Steps

  1. Preliminary preparation
  2. Field Survey
  3. Audit Program Development
  4. Audit Execution
  5. Reporting and Follow-up

Further improvements can be gained by organizing the warehouse so that product is easily found and retrieved. Review warehouse layout and product storage, and make improvements to the overall layout and product storage strategy

To schedule an Audit with your local KMH representatives call: 888-564-7978 or fill-out our request form below:

    Used Forklift For Sale

    Create Ease & Increase Your ROI

    Labor is intensive and can’t always keep pace with growing demands. Human error is a reality, and it not only lowers productivity, but it wastes valuable time and increases company tension. Creating ease adds value, lowers stress as well as costs and it increases returns.

    Sometimes people forget the “flow” aspect of “work flow,” and focus too much on the work. An integrated system that creates more ease leaves room for growth. Most people can’t think clearly under pressure. Growth in profit and efficiency increases your peace of mind, confidence, and reputation, which in turn spreads to more customers who will benefit from your improvements. The money saved in your cost per unit shipped adds more value so your organization can expand to fill more orders.

    KMH offers FREE operational audits to assess your organization’s needs, your customers’ wants, and your financial investment strategy and expected return. We bring over 30 years of experience to help you improve production and distribution to your daily experience.

    Items KMH Takes In Consideration:

    • Increasing your throughput
    • Improving your productivity
    • Maintaining accuracy
    • Return on investment
    • Your company’s strengths and weaknesses
    • Available processes equipment and systems
    • Price, space and budget
    • Labor costs
    • Value added opportunities

    Our award winning team takes pride in delivering solutions and working with you to engineer, collaborate, automate, integrate, and support your company. We strive to create ease in your operation to bring you savings. You can’t buy peace of mind, but you can invest in it.

    To schedule an operational audit, call:

    888-KMH-SYSTEMS