Ergonomics should be wired into the design of all the processes of a modern industrial operation. Whether that means designing conveyor workstations with ergonomics in mind, utilizing work benches and stations that are adjustable for “right height” operations, adding turntables to rotate product, finding ways to reduce order pickers’ bending and stretching, or designing storage areas so that bending and stretching are minimized, well-designed operations bake ergonomics into their work processes.
One of the common areas you can attack is hand tool use. In many operations, strong younger workers may not complain about using heavy, hand-held tools for 8+ hours a day, but that stress is taking its tolls.
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Posted in Safety & Ergonomics|
I recently attended a product training class on high volume low speed fans, and a statistic was thrown out to the audience that really got me thinking. A NASA study, Compendium of Human Responses to the Aerospace Environment*, showed that worker productivity falls significantly for every degree over an optimum temperature of about 72 degrees. If the temperature hits 85 degrees in the workplace, productivity drops by 18% and accuracy a walloping 40%.
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Tags: ergonomics, Safety & Ergonomics, worker environment, temperature comfort, fire safety, air quality, hearing loss, noise, lighting quality
Posted in Safety & Ergonomics|
Work on rooftops is dangerous – even for those with long experience. It’s easy to get over-confident, forgetful, and unaware of how close you are to a potential fall. Workers often push the limits to finish up faster, step unexpectedly in the wrong place, or trip and fall into a skylight or roof hatch. In fact, according to OSHA, falls are the #1 cause of fatalities in construction, with nearly 400 deaths in 2014 alone.
What can be done to protect these workers and contractors?
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Tags: fall protection, rooftop fall prevention, skylight, hatch, roof edge, perimeter guard, fall barrier
Posted in Safety & Ergonomics|
Often we think of hazardous chemicals storage in light of EPA and other regulatory requirements – what will I get cited for if I don’t comply? Forget citations – isn’t the real reason the safety of your workers and your facility? Let’s discuss safety measures that don’t require a large effort, but may help prevent significant issues.
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Tags: chemical label, waste chemical, spill prevention regulations, spill containment, safety cabinets, fire resistant lockers, hazardous chemical storage
Posted in Safety & Ergonomics|
Most people work less effectively, are less comfortable, and have poorer attitudes in a messy environment. For industrial facility operators, housekeeping can sometimes lag behind with busy days where people hardly have time to look up, much less deal with the clutter and byproducts of meeting shipping deadlines or production demands.
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Tags: warehouse cleanliness, 5S principles, industrial hygiene
Posted in Safety & Ergonomics|
In manufacturing & distribution, safety is an area of top concern, for both the protection of workers and financial ramifications for companies. We spent some time at ProMat with Kelly Kamlager from Ladder Industries to examine the importance of safety and compliance for industrial companies.
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Tags: warehousing, OSHA, Safety & Ergonomics, hiring
Posted in Safety & Ergonomics|
These collisions have done some damage
In both cases, the guard rail has deformed. That’s good (kind of), because both guardrails have done their jobs and protected the people, equipment or facility structures behind them. On the other hand, you can see that the rail systems have been damaged. Let’s see how they match up in form, function and lifetime cost. Typically when you have a forklift barrier, it will eventually be impacted, and those impacts can be direct or indirect, fast or slow, serious or cosmetic. When the impact is direct, fast and damaging, what are the critical differences in rigid and flexible rail systems?
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Tags: Flexible polymer guard rail, traffic control, pedestrian, inventory, structure, forklift safety, guarding systems, Steel guard rail
Posted in Safety & Ergonomics|
Guardrails are used to separate people, structures, machinery and valuable assets from heavy forklifts weighing more than 10,000 pounds. The requirements for durability and impact resistance are demanding, yet many don’t understand what types of impacts their systems can endure, and under what circumstances. The issue is compounded by the fact that many manufacturers simply don’t provide impact ratings for their guard rails. Some companies fabricate and install home-made railing, which is likely to never have been rated at all.
What can you do to ensure your guard railing system can protect your employees and property the way it’s supposed to?
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Tags: traffic management, guard rail systems, facility safety, hand rails, bollards
Posted in Safety & Ergonomics|
What goes up…
In warehousing and storage operations where inventory is stored high on racks, stacked on floors, slotted into on multi-level shelving, mezzanine deck-overs or on suspended/overhead conveyor as it moves, there is one constant: things will fall. They fall because they’re stacked wrong. They fall because an order picker or a forklift bumps them. Things fall due to seismic activity, machine stops, or silly mistakes. Sometimes it seems like they fall for no reason at all.
What can you do to “stop the drop”?
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Tags: Inventory protection, product damage, conveyor safety, warehouse control
Posted in Safety & Ergonomics|
Industrial workplace safety bears repetition and consistent reinforcement
For manufacturing and distribution operations, workplace safety doesn’t just protect workers—it optimizes productivity and helps drive revenue growth. It also helps protect company assets, reduces downtime, and increases morale. What can you do to protect your employees in picking, packing, material handling, assembly, maintenance and similar work? To answer this question, we spoke with leading manufacturers and distributors. Here’s what they had to say: Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Unex, ergonomics, WireCrafters, Hytrol, industrial safety
Posted in Safety & Ergonomics|
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