Safety

Some practical tips for warehouse housekeeping programs include :

Mark walkways and storage area with yellow guideline. Shows the neatness of this

dock area. The painted lines outline planned product storage areas.
Change filters in heating and ventilation units to help control dust conditions.
Keep object from protruding into aisles
Keep walkways free of tripping or slip/ fall hazards such as metal or plastic strapping,

grease, oil. Rope, scrap and debris

If cans, containers, cartons or other parcels are potential fire hazards, keep them

stored in an approved cabinet

Keep stairs free of foreign objects and keep a nonskid surface on the stairs
Keep materials sorted in an orderly manner. Store on racks only those material and

equipment intended for the racks.

Keep the area under and between racks and bins free of dirt and debris
So not allow product to hang out of bins or to be on the floor
Place signs on bins or other storage areas defining the product to be stored there.
Store products in neat rows with the identification facing out for easy visual access
Never store flammables with combustibles. Keep separate storage areas for

flammables based on fire codes

Smooking should not be allowed in a warehouse for obvious fire hazard reasons.
Require special use of ash trays for cigarettes rather than allowing them to be

discarded on the floor or around warehouse property

Dont block fire fighting and first aid equipment, Proper access can be aided by
painting the areas below fire- fighting equipment with red squares and white striped

borders
Keep floors free of water from leaks in the rood or water that has been brought in by
mmobine equipment. Slips and falls are common with wet floors. Powered equipment
may have difficulty stopping on a wet floor. Use a squeegee to clear water in aisles
and work areas when mopping may take too long

Summary
Effective housekeeping programs play major role in reducing injury and associated cost.
Keeping floors clean and smooth greatly improve the appearance of a warehouse. Material
handling equipment such as lift trucks and automatic guided vehicles will operate more
efficiently and have fewer service problems. Clean floors reflect managements commitment
to quality of the workplace. The customers perception of the warehouse is improved through

better housekeeping. The direct and indirect cost associated with injuries, product damage
and property damage are reduced through an effective housekeeping program.
Housekeeping is everyones responsibility and effective safety and health programs cannot be
effective without house keeping program. Employees come to appreciate a clean and orderly
workplace. Cleanliness and order are common to improved employee morale.
Getting a handle on inventory with good warehousekeeping
For many companies, getting a handle on inventory can mean the difference between a yearly
profit and a loss. Larger customers want to know that they can depend on deliveries from
smaller suppliers. If Amazon sees a warehouse in seeming disarray, it may lose confidence in
that supplier.
Over time, a warehouse accumulates excess inventory related material and often personal
possessions. The people who view the same environment say in and day out dont see it in the
same manner as a guest. A warehouse manager may know where every pieces of inventory
resides, even if the facility looks jumbled and unorganized. But to a customer or supplier
visiting the site, warehouse disorganization can indicate that accurate picking and on time
shipping are problematic.
Establishing standards for order and cleanliness in a warehouse can actually pay huge
dividends. Good warehousekeeping can result in better customer service through better
inventory management, improved worker safety, savings in labor costs and so on.
There may be good reason why a warehouse is difficult to clean, such as dust from gravel
parking lots or unsealed floors. Cleanliness is a confidence builder and it is the main reason
for taking a fresh look at warehousing.
Clutter hurts your reputation
To a company CEO, a dirty warehouse may imply that supercisors have lost pride in their
work or employee are not being held accountable for accurate processes. To a warehouse
employee, disorganization may signal that the company doesnt take care as much about the
warehouse as it does about its corporate offices.

An unorganized or messy warehouse indicares to visitors, suppliers and staff that efficiency is
lacking. It might even communicate that potential revenue is bring lost, warehouse staff
members are overwhelmed or even that company morale is suffering.
Clutter diminishes efficiency
Messy warehouse aisles are not only safety hazards, they affect the throughout rate per
warehouse worker- impacting the profitability of the site. Simply reducing the clutter in the
aisles will improve the efficiency of picking and increase productivity and throughput which
contribute to overall profitability.
A pile of boxes in the middle of an aisle is an indicator that the warehouse inventory process
is dlawed. If you need to move pallets in an aisle destined for putaway so you can access a
pick location, thats an obvious bottleneck to productivity. Can an order really be delivered on
time ? And wont it cost a lot more to ensure that stock is available when there is no easy way
to know what needs to be ordered?
If a warehouse is a jumble of mismatched inverntory mixed with return in no logical order,
Its hard to get a handle on how to improve picking processes. It will also be impposible to
establish the criteria for task simplification which contributes to labor cost saving/

Consolidation of cargo in location

With picking activities, many location can contain less than full pallet quantity over a period
of time and hence the locations capacity may not be optimized. The warehouse has to look
for opportunities to consolidate the same product type from many less than full pallet
locations into one full pallet location. This will help the warehouse in the following ways :
Free up location to accommodate new incoming shipment to the warehouse
Improve picking productivity of the stadd as it will reduice picking tie and the number of
locations to go to for the picking of the same product.
Consolidation of cargo in location is a housekeeping activity that must be planned and
executed on a weekly basis.
Cleanliness

The cleanliness and orderliness of the warehouse is an important marketing tool for
3PLproviders. It is discipline that must be ensured and enforced by the warehouse manager.
As such he should ensure the following
Before the end of each day, 15-30 minutes should be set aside for the staff to clean up the
warehouse and return all equipment, product and packing materials back to their original
locations. In addition the warehouse should be swept clean of dust and debris.
Warehouse manager must arrange for regular pest control routine inspection.
For example feed milling company should be commiteed to maintaining a quality
housekeeping programme that provides a safe and healty environment for its employees and
the community. The intent is to maintain mill properties in a manner that minimizes loss to
persons or property and maximize product quality assurance. Housekeeping is a direct
responsibility of all employees and each of them should be held accountable to do the things
necessary to implement an effective housekeeping programme.
Practices :

Transh should be disposed of or recycled as appropriate

Feed or ingredient spills should be cleaned up immediately. Spilled matetials should

be put in designated, marked containers for proper disposal

Fugitive dust point should be investigated, evaluated and corrective action taken
Offices, break rooms and restrooms should be cleaned regularly
All employee should keep their work areas as clean and orderly
Hand tools should be picked up and stored
Pallets of bagged products should be stacked neatly and in an orderly way. Broken
bags should be taped and reclaimed as soon as possible.

Pest control

All broken window should be repaired and the building kept tight to deny access
to the mil from birds, rodents or other factors hich may adversely affect the

quality of the finished feed

Insects and rodents. The plant and warehouse should be baited and fogged as
needed using approved pest control methods. Baits and fumigation should be done
by trained personnel, preferably an approved, licensed pest control agency. A
record should be kept off all pesticides used and the type of applications.