Inventory and FIFO in our goods receiving area

[qcgirl]

I'm new to this sight but I've been browsing for a while now. I have come across some very informative threads. I am currently helping with setting up a QMS for a start up company and we are trying to come up with some inovative solutions for implementing FIFO in our goods receiving area. Unfortunately our rack system will not be available until the beginning of next year but we need to get something in place before our audit in November. Other than marking off the floor and creating a visual board for material that in raw material and material that is approved for production can anyone provide me with some other ideas? Thanks!

 

[Coury Ferguson]

First In First Out (FIFO)- anybody have this type of process in their organization?

 

[somerqc]

qcgirl,

I don't know what your physical setup is like; however, at a previous employer we had a similar issue. What we did was setup In and Out sections to a defined area.

The "IN" was just that that. No material handling machinery was allowed to take material out the "IN". In addition, they were instructed to move the material as far into this defined area as possible (re: where the last skids were).

The "OUT" was guess what where the forklifts and other machinery were allowed to take material out. They were instructed to take the materials closest to the "OUT" door.

As a temporary condition, this worked well. I will note that it does take strong monitoring by supervision and management initially. I have found that people tend to take the material that is easiest to get to - not necessarily the material they should be taking.

Like you, we eventually installed racking and it was much easier. Just an idea that has worked for me in the past.

John

 

[qcgirl]

I appreciate the input and we have already labeled and lined off the rows for our skids. The areas are for Raw Material Incoming (Needs a QC Audit) and Outgoing (Approved by QC for production use). I used 6 rows for each area and labeled them A, B, C, D, E and F and each row will hold 6 skids of material. What I was hoping to gain in the forum were maybe some visual examples of other existing FIFO methods but since I don't have alot of time and racks are out of the question at this point I've decided to go with a card system based on the date the material comes in for the Incoming and Outgoing and the actual material number as we only have 8 different materials coming in right now (and it will be that way for awhile). I'm a big believer in visual management, "a picture is worth a thousand words", girl I guess. I have also found over the years that TS Auditors are more responsive to the visual aids on the production floor especially when it's feasible to use them.