5S in warehouse

ABOUT THE PROJET & CHALLENGES

1. Disorganized warehouse
2. No transparency on inventory
3. Risk to run out of needed material
4. Lots of outdated consumables and useless material

This meant wasted time in searching material.

SOLUTION & RESULTS

By applying the 5S methodology, the project team totally restructured the aisles of this warehouse. Unused stocks where disposed of and required stocks where organized by type (type of material, standard versus project-related and frequency of use). High runners where set close to the storekeeper to reduce movements. A simple Kanban cards system was set on these high runners to eliminate the risk of running out of stock and make reordering easier.

Applying 5S reduced searching time and movements for the storekeeper. In this case, the yearly inventory time was reduced by 50%.