In a recent blog post, Auburn professor Dr. Kevin Gue, one of the bright minds in the industry when it comes to the business of industrial distribution and plant operations, reflected on the reaction to his ProMat 2013 talk on “Designing a Worker-Centric Facility”.  Gue has smart points about the relationship between safety and ROI – and how you can deal with those issues.

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“We need help before someone gets hurt”

The situation is familiar: in a busy warehouse or distribution center, you can have dozens or hundreds of order pickers that walk the floor with carts and clipboards or scan guns to pick orders for shipping. These are usually focused people who have the job in mind. After all, you’ve probably told them how speed is of the essence – which it is. The problem is that in many or most operations, there are also forklifts, walkies, or electric powered jacks operating in the same space, often in tightly spaced pallet rack aisles.

And guess what? The guys driving those forklifts are busy and focused on the job, too. It’s almost assured that if you have this situation, you’ve had accidents, or near-accidents — which you may never hear of, until the near-miss isn’t a miss at all.

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Most distribution and manufacturing operations deal with empty pallets. Sometimes, a lot of them.

Empty pallets take space you could use for something else as they clutter your receiving area. Sometimes they’re splintery, with nails protruding from the sides ready to bite a passerby. People re-use their pallets, holding onto them for a period of time until they’re used for an outbound shipment. But while they’re in your facility, they can eat space, potentially injure people, and generally cause trouble.

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In a fast-paced distribution center, there is plenty of forklift traffic, moving conveyors, packing machines, carousels, and dock doors. Same with manufacturing; you have all kinds of production machinery, welding (human and robotic), and heavy material being handled, stacked, or processed, along with the forklifts and other handling equipment. It’s hard enough to keep your own people – the ones who should know the lay of the land – safe in these environments. But what about visitors who haven’t had the benefit of your safety training and the situational awareness that your employees develop over time?

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The most common advice that ergonomics experts, OSHA, and other researchers provide to people in warehousing or other jobs that require manual lifting is that you should always bend your knees and lift that way, rather than bend at the waist to pick something up. Repetitive stress on the lower back is staggering: 20% of workplace injuries are related to lower back issues. Lifting right is essential to employee safety, and also to preventing Worker Compensation claims.

Even when you train employees to lift right – and we know that not everyone does – they frequently ignore the advice. Why?

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One of the more dangerous items that you’ll find at virtually every facility is the humble gas cylinder. In warehouses or manufacturing operations, you’ll find LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) canisters that power gas forklifts. You’ll also find vertical cylinders for welders, cutting torches, or other equipment operations. Too often, you will find them standing against a wall or on the dock with no protection at all.

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You can see some of the mistakes happening in this video. Others aren’t so obvious.

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Walk any warehouse, manufacturing facility, or commercial storage operation and you’ll almost always find two things: forklifts and dock doors.

If that building has been in place for any length of time, you’ll also find dinged, dented, ruined or replaced dock door guides, pallet rack frames, building columns, etc. While many operations take steps to use guard rails or bollards to shield their critical machinery, dock doors can be left out.

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It’s summer, and it’s hot. No doubt, if you have an air-conditioned facility, your electric bills are headed someplace north of the top of the Eiffel Tower. HVLS (high volume, low speed) ceiling-mounted fans can reduce climate control costs, in particular when your facility is already air-conditioned.

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There are many issues of productivity and safety that are stressed as the heat rises. As temperatures start to rise, it gets particularly hot in industrial facilities, warehouses, shops, and distribution centers where air conditioning isn’t always present, extremely costly, or very effective. Experts say that employee productivity increases when ambient temperatures are comfortable and plummets when they aren’t. Error rates climb and safety is compromised as workers fight through hot, sweaty conditions. Here are some ways you can go about combating the rigors of summer.

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