From a total of 39,324 inspections last year, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) found 88,846 violations. For warehousers, distributors and manufacturers, the list is familiar.

1. Scaffolding
2. Fall protection
3. Hazard communication
4. Control of hazardous energy
5. Respiratory protection
6. Powered industrial trucks
7. Electrical (wiring)
8. Ladders
9. Machine guarding
10. Electrical (general requirements).

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We’ve added a series of drawings from Steel King that detail out the critical dimensions for various kinds of pallet rack, ranging from selective to drive-in, to over-door pallet storage racks. It’s a small PDF file (just 368 KB) that shows front and side views of various rack types and the things needed to correctly specify them. It’s easy to print and has some other links to useful pallet rack information and web pages.

Check it out. If you’re working on a rack project, it’s one more tool you can put to fast use.

That’s a compelling line from Ed Tittel’s article at SearchSecurity.com.

For Datacenter, server, and other sensitive information technology, it seems as if the security focus has sometimes missed the actual servers themselves. As Tittel says in the piece, “…just about any Windows NT, 2000 or XP laptop, booting this software (NT Locksmith) from a floppy permits a knowledgeable Windows person to take over the machine and reset the administrator password in 5-10 minutes.”

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While there are dozens and dozens of shelving manufacturers and even more variations of trade names for them, there are really just three basic kinds of industrial shelving manufactured and broadly used — Rivet-Type, Steel Clip, and Wire. Of course, there are more variations of these shelving types than you can imagine, but most shelving boils down to these kinds. You can also consider bulk rack as “shelving”, but we have found that heavy duty rivet shelving often fulfills the roles it has typically filled.

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Cisco-Eagle has been selected by the ESOPAssociation as the nationwide winner of the 2008 award for Printed Materials (250 or fewer employees). The AACE (Annual Awards for Communications Excellence) Awards are sponsored each year by the Association to recognize the outstanding communications and educational programs of its members. The award will be presented in May 2008 in Washington, DC at the Association’s Annual Conference.

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Can it be done? We think so.

We recently published the 2008 Cisco-Eagle full-line catalog. It’s 132 pages of equipment, specs, and information about our product and services offerings. You can request one from any Cisco-Eagle sales associate, or contact us directly for one through the website. If you want to download it for instant availability, click here. It’s a large file at 10MB compressed, so it has been broken up into smaller sections - pick the one you want and instantly get it. Of course, more information is always available on this website, but for printing and easy portability, the catalog may be just the thing for you.

A quick note: Cisco-Eagle is a sponsor of the University of Arkansas RFID Research center. We’ve been involved with the center since its 2005 inception. I’ve visited the center a number of times, and have seen the innovative work that’s being done.

The center continues to excel with this study on the effect of RFID technology on inventory accuracy.

The study confirms that RFID can have a significant positive effect on retail inventory accuracy. For players like Wal-Mart, this means millions of dollars in savings. A preliminary analysis demonstrated that an automated, RFID-enabled inventory system improved accuracy by about 13% in test stores compared to control stores.

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This is the fourth in a series of briefs on cross docking

A recent project for a large retailer in the Southwest provided a good example of how an element of cross-docking might be deployed to reduce the footprint of distribution space required, reduce order fulfillment touchpoints, and shorten the logical pathway for fulfilling orders.

Incoming shipments are anticipated through the use of advanced shipping notices (ASN’s). Stretch-wrapped pallet loads arrive via truck throughout the day. They arrive at doors designated for cross-docking. These doors were selected based upon proximity to the material handling system which takes advantage of the facility layout. Pallets are unloaded by fork truck, the stretch wrap removed, and cases manually inducted into one of several conveyor staging lanes. Each lane represents a “wave” of orders which will be processed either that day, or a specific day later in the week. When a wave is released, it moves downstream, and the individual cases are sorted to a specific shipping lane whose products are destined for a particular store. Other products from static storage positions and non-conveyables destined for the same store are consolidated at this point. Read the rest of this entry »

Left: Pflow Regional Manager Chuck Cobb .
Right: Cisco-Eagle Houston Market Manager Jason Eitreim

Pflow Industries (pronounced “flow”, by the way) recently recognized Cisco-Eagle as a top distributor of its vertical reciprocating conveyor and other lift products. Pflow Southeast Regional Manager Chuck Cobb presented the awards to our President, Steve Strifler, and to Houston Market Manager Jason Eitreim. Read the rest of this entry »