We have published another exclusive Cisco-Eagle WebTool, a configuration tool that lets you create steel guard rail layouts, basic drawings, prices, and component lists. The Steel Guard Rail Configurator works instantly right in your browser. Like all of our other webtools, it doesn’t require registration. You can elect to send your results to Cisco-Eagle for assistance with your project. 

The configurator allows single sided, two, three, and four sided layouts. 

Steel King’s Steel Guard Heavy-duty guardrail creates a highly visible wall of steel that is perfect for surrounding machinery, protecting conveyor lines, modular buildings, or lining a pedestrian walkway. Specially designed ribs in the guardrail give the walls extra durability. 

Forklift aisle widths are typically set when pallet racking is installed. In many cases, such as narrow aisle projects, these spaces are critically important. Typically, warehouse managers don’t attempt to lay out these types of storage facilities. But for reach truck, selective rack applications, these aisle sizes are often “eye balled”, or given a 12′ width no matter what type of forklift is using the aisles. If you are laying out a facility, what criteria should you use for rack aisle width?

Read the rest of this entry »

Merging two formerly separate industrial operations can be more difficult, expensive, and time consuming than creating an entirely new plant. After all, even in the best of scenarios, it’s almost always easier to start with a blank slate. But in these days of consolidations and cost cutting, this can happen to almost any company.  Planning and open communications is the key in general, but there are specific issues you should be aware of.

 What are some pitfalls, and how can you avoid them?

Read the rest of this entry »

Can you cause a pallet rack collapse with a simple kick or push? In this video, it seems you can. But what really happened to cause such a dangerous incident? 

The kick itself, while inadvisable, should not cause a pallet rack collapse. Some conjecture on the real cause of this near-fatal incident:

Read the rest of this entry »

Forklift approach warning lights are an economical way to help alert people on foot to the approach of a forklift, AGV, or other industrial vehicle. In this case, we are able to show you how visible these lights can be in a setting where an order picking vehicle is traveling through a rack aisle, and where someone’s perspective might not allow them to see the approaching danger. The light is very visible, up to fifteen feet preceding the lift.

This video displays a Seegrid automated industrial truck, at our recent Open House and Automation Exhibit. The Seegrid truck navigated a large warehouse, interacting frequently with attendees to demonstrate its route learning and safety features. “I trust it more than many forklift drivers I’ve been around,” said one attendee. (Seegrid trucks have a 100% safety record, so that trust is well-founded).

• More information on the unique Seegrid system may be found here.

Joel Pason has been named Cisco-Eagle’s Employee-Owner of the Year (click for more details).

The award recognizes an employee-owner that has gone beyond what is expected to promote and support the ownership culture at Cisco-Eagle during the fiscal year. Pason, a Project Manager in our Oklahoma City Systems & Design group, has been with Cisco-Eagle since 1999.

Congratulations to Joel!

Check out this video from ESH Safety News America for some common ways people fall in a variety of situations. The video is informative, and sometimes funny (see the shovel part), but the consequences of a slip & fall accident certainly are no laughing matter.

Read the rest of this entry »

In any order picking, assembly, packing, or palletizing process, time spent walking is wasted. Value is realized at work areas, not in transit between them. In many operations, order pickers can walk as many as 12 miles a day. This level of walking makes workers tired and more prone to error, injuries, and declines in productivity. While some degree of walking is unavoidable, much of this is simply commuting time to retrieve supplies, or inefficient design that makes the job harder and less efficient than it should be.

How can you reduce time walking, and increase the time people spend getting things done?

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a lot of confusion about the different finishes that can be applied to a pallet rack wire deck. Various manufacturers offer different finishes, and you may have need of more than one of them for different types of storage applications. Nashville Wire, our rack decking supplier, has sent us this super-basic primer on the common finish options.

Read the rest of this entry »