Warehouse managers tend to focus on internal processes, equipment and systems, but making your dock apron and loading zone more efficient will save time, money and damage. Truck drivers who can’t clearly see the right dock in darkness or poor weather can’t maneuver effectively or square up to the dock quickly. They often must back in and out multiple times. Helping drivers align and organize will improve the entire flow of your shipping and receiving operation.

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Dock door security cages are used to control access to warehouse facilities, docks and receiving areas where drivers, service workers and others enter a building. They are typically 2 or 3-sided and cover a dock’s personnel access door while allowing truck drivers and other visitors to enter the facility, but not the warehouse and general storage or production areas. This lets you admit visitors (or not) as your security and safety rules dictate.

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Loading docks are critical because they’re where everything is received—and eventually shipped. The right shipping & receiving setup means smooth product flow, faster putaway and more accurate fulfillment. In short, it means a safer and better operation. To help you protect your docks and your people, check out our new dock equipment guide.

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Dock boards and dock plates are built to transition forklifts, pallet jacks, carts, people and other transportation methods between trailers and your warehouse dock area or staging floor. How can you be sure the transition between truck trailers and your dock is safe?

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For all the work that goes into preventing them, the majority of warehouses share many of the same safety hazards.

Due to the way warehouses handle items and process shipments, many of their workers are subject to similar risks for injury and product damage. While this can seem like an unending cycle of danger, there’s plenty of ways to mitigate these more prominent ones and keep everyone and everything in your warehouse safe from harm.

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Your most important customer satisfaction function is probably your warehouse and order fulfillment operations. Order fulfillment impacts the things customers care about most:

• Did I get the right product?
• Did I get it on time?
• Did I get the right quantity?
• Was my shipment damaged?

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You try to run away as fast as you can, aware of the scary apparition chasing you with each breath. You turn to look back, and stumble onto the ground. Paralyzed with fear, you watch as the shape moves closer and closer. Suddenly up close, you can see that there was no way you could escape, as safety issues could not be stopped.

Blumhouse horror movie? Not really. Warehouses can be dangerous places to work in. It is important to understand common warehouse dangers and hazards because they can cause injuries and in extreme cases death, haunting your warehouse for years to come. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported an average of 16 fatalities every year in the US warehousing and storage sector and a reported injury and illness rate of 5 out of every 100 warehouse and storage workers. With these ghastly statistics in mind, we review some of the most common warehouse safety bogeymen and offer tips and resources to help you avoid their terror.

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Warehouses have always had problems with the point in their material handling system where docks or shipping areas meet the production line. For lack of a better word, these are awkward areas where it’s difficult to handle product in that dead zone between the end of a material handling system and truck trailers.
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As we have covered previously, conveyors contribute to ergonomics in material handling operations by reducing repetitive lifts, twists, reaching and materials movement that may have been done by hand without them. Eliminating manual lifting and carrying reduces the chances for painful, expensive musculoskeletal injuries. It’s not about the once-in-a-while lift/carry. It’s about the same, repetitive motions over and over.

It’s important that your conveyor is configured correctly to make this work.

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In warehouses, about 25% of injuries come at or near the loading dock area.

This is usually because it’s such a focal point of any distribution operation—it’s where everything is accepted and put away and where everything eventually processes out. This means that at times the dock will buzz with forklifts, workers on foot and other bursts of activity. It has a natural fall hazard in the edge of the dock. It’s got exposure to elements, meaning that it may have moisture, oils and other trip/slip hazards. When it comes to preventing falls, what are OSHA’s requirements? And what should you do above and beyond them?

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