How to Get Organized This Year

• Organization
• March 7, 2018

Organization is considered by many to be the single most important factor in establishing and sustaining productive work habits. It also means keeping things as simple and functional as can be, for long-lasting results. Set yourself and your team up for success with tools and systems tailored to your strengths, preferences and needs. Whether it’s for a warehouse, a healthcare facility, a classroom, pharmacy, garage or your home, your first job is to SORT. Don’t be intimidated by the idea of sorting. It’s simply a matter of putting like items together. Once that’s done, you’ll know what you need and how much of it to store your items.

Warehouses: The Journal of Commerce recently featured president of Kontane Logistics, Michael Stolarczyk, whose whole company is based on streamlining systems. Here are some suggestions from him regarding warehouse organization:

Evaluate your storage equipment to ensure proper application. Placing slow-moving, low-cube items in bin shelving and fast-moving items inmight line tape, floor marking tape, aisle marking tape, tape clearwater, floor tape clearwater, tom gondi, mighty line tape, shieldmark tape, mighty line tape clearwater, shieldmark tape clearwater carton/pallet flow, or other appropriate storage options. This improves storage density and picker productivity.
Consider automation – order pickers spend about 60% of their time walking product or moving product around. Consider an automated solution, such as conveyors, to reduce their extensive travel time. Multi-level pick towers also save travel time and are quite innovative.
Keep aisles clear. The more cluttered your warehouse aisles are, the harder it will be to find what you need. Assign one person to keep aisles clear.
Does your warehouse work area look like your unorganized sock drawer, but at the same time you are concerned with the overwhelming effort required to paint and maintain painted lines? Try Mighty Line floor tape and other floor marking products so there is ‘a place for everything and everything is in its place’.

Healthcare: Simplify storage & organization for greater efficiency in patient care areas, labs and diagnostic centers, and long term care facilities with the #1 best-seller by Akro-Mils, The ProCart. Coupled with modular cabinets or crystal clear drawers, these carts are not only efficient but increase safety, quality, compliance & cost containment.

Using these easy-to-follow steps, your supply room reorganization team can get you started immediately on Designing or Reorganizing your Supply Room.
Take a look at how the 2-bin Kanban Supply System works for St. Clair Hospital in Pittsburg. By adding wire shelf carts and clear bins, they went from having stock out issues with nursing supplies to zero stock outs and zero manual requisitions sent down to materials management. The investment in system design paid off in terms of better staff satisfaction, reduced waste, and better patient care.
Pharmacy: When you work in a pharmacy, everything must be clean, organized, and secured. Having the correct supplies on hand will help you in keeping your workspace neat, orderly and you’ll be less likely to confuse items that are similar in appearance or name.

Store similar items together on the shelves. When organizing supplies, “similar” refers to the route of administration (external, internal or
storage and Handling equipment, cogan, wire cages, theft, DEA, wire partitions, industrial material handling, material handling, storage, injectable) and form of preparation (dry or liquid medicines).
Top Shelves – Dry medicines (tablets, capsules, oral rehydration packets). If the top shelf is near the ceiling or out of your reach, use that shelf to store items that are NOT sensitive to heat and are NOT used regularly.
Middle Shelves – Store liquids, including injectables and ointments. Don’t put dry medicines below them. If liquids leak, the medicines may spoil.
Bottom Shelves – Store other supplies, such as surgical items, lab supplies, and labels.
Consider wire cages – In the case of controlled substances, such as narcotics and other opioid analgesics and psychotropic medicines, always store these substances in a secure area, following national guidelines. Check out Cogan DEA Drug Storage Cages
Teachers: Here are many ways to use storage bins to organize your classroom:

A commonplace for student’s water bottles.
If your students are at tables, not desks, each student can have a bin to store their supplies.
Class libraries- Sort by theme, genre, leveled take-home books, chapter books or author.
Line storage carts with bins. This idea serves well for open or semi-open classrooms since the storage carts can be lined up to create a “wall”.
Home: Bins systems are great for organizing all those little parts and pieces.

Don’t throw out nuts, bolts, screws, etc. because you can’t find them. Organize your garage so each piece of hardware has its own storage bin. Same idea can apply for small automotive parts.
Office supplies
Beads & craft supplies
Legos!
Other ways to get organized for the New Year:
Transform Your Garage
Tips for Organizing Your Home
Space Saving Storage System
10 Ways to Store & Protect your Inventory

We offer FREE on-site assessments and have 40+ years experience in warehouse design (C.A.D.) & installations

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