Warehousing Insights | Material Handling Systems - Part 17
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Carry That Weight: What is Your Warehouse Floor Capable of?

May 20, 2021
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Pallet rack floor

I’ve become an expert in the shifting soil beneath my house over the years. With most of my area enriched with clay soil, I have gotten to know and understand the subtle shifts that occur in my foundation for each season. There have been areas of concern and repairs to make as my foundation has shifted over the years. It’s something we just have to deal with.

Your warehouse covers a much larger area than my one-story home, but regardless of how much foundation you have, you want to make sure your floor can handle the shifts and carry the weight it holds.

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Posted in Mezzanines & Industrial Platforms|

How to Help Drivers Park Faster & Safer at Your Truck Docks

May 18, 2021
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Dock lasers work in darkness, helping drivers find the right lane at a busy receiving dock.

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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Posted in Docks & Shipping|

Download Our Guide To Order Picking

May 13, 2021
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order picker in search
When searching for the right order picking equipment to meet your facility’s methods and operations, the amount of variety available can be overwhelming. To help with this, Cisco-Eagle has created a new guide to order picking equipment and methods to help you find the picking sweet spot.

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Posted in Order Picking & Fulfillment|

Pallet Rack Clearances: Lateral, Vertical and Building Structures

May 11, 2021
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Warehouse rack with worker placing a pallet into tight space on a pallet rack

One of the critical aspects of pallet rack system design, aside from the specs of the rack itself, are the various clearances between rack components, the loads and the surrounding environment. Flue space can be critical for fire safety compliance. Space between a rack row and the row behind it can contribute to a safer and more effective rack system. Narrow aisles can contribute to accidents. Too tall? You could cause damaged and falling inventory, as well as damage to fixtures or HVAC components.

At the end of the day, the space around the rack is nearly as important as the rack itself.

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Posted in Pallet & Warehouse Racks|

Shoptalk: Forklift Warning Lights

May 4, 2021
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forklift LED arc safety light

In this installment of Cisco-Eagle’s Shoptalk series, Missy, who works extensively with forklift safety lights and other accessories, discusses the different styles and types of forklift safety lights available, and how to choose the right light for your operation. Different styles of lights will bring you different levels of safety and protection. Missy lines out what each type of forklift light will do for you in this video.

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Posted in Safety & Ergonomics|

How to Design and Utilize Storage Buffers

April 20, 2021
by

Bulk storage buffer at a warehouse

Buffers can be found in most warehouses and manufacturing facilities, and they take many forms. You can build buffers into racks, floor space, conveyors or external storage areas like truck trailers. When you need to temporarily store materials before they enter putaway, shipment, kitting, processing, or another production process, what are some of the best design, equipment specification and usage practices?

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Posted in Space Optimization & Planning|

Improve Productivity with Ergonomic Storage System Design

April 15, 2021
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Carton flow storage loaded with the most frequent picks in the golden zone for ergonomic efficiency.
For order pickers, packers and others in industrial facilities, warehouse ergonomics is critical to both safety and effectiveness. The way you store and pick can enhance productivity — or hamper it. In an age of labor shortages and spiraling costs, it pays to design for ergonomics. The core of that is where you place items for picking and processing.

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Posted in Safety & Ergonomics|

How to Make Packing More Efficient

April 6, 2021
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Automated packing area for an ecommerce distribution center, pick-to-totes operation.

Above: in this automated e-commerce distribution center, picks are packed into cartons from totes on the conveyor line. Because conveyors deliver the totes directly to workers, and the work is executed at ergonomic heights, the process is fast and efficient.

Order fulfillment is only as fast as its slowest function, and packing–often the last stop before shipping–can be a bottleneck. We’ve analyzed many operations that underestimated the needs of the packing department from the start, while others realized over time that new requirements, new SKUs and order volumes that were fine at go-live eventually bogged the packing function. It’s not unusual for picking processes to react faster and better to these conditions than the packing area.

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Posted in Order Picking & Fulfillment|

A Guide to Workstation Reach Zones

March 23, 2021
by

assembly line with integrated conveyors and workstations.

You should always analyze the economy of movement for repetitive tasks like assembly, packing, picking and repair. Imagine reaching to the same shelf, for the same carton, to pull the same part. How many times a shift does someone make that reach? How many working days a year? How many years? Shaving time and effort off a simple repetitive motion can shave time off your process and improve ergonomics over the years.

To do that, look at how many times–and places–your people reach for things on a daily basis.

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Posted in Storage, Organization & Workstations|

Shoptalk: Vertical Conveyor Safety Gates and Enclosures

March 16, 2021
by

man using yellow gate on VRC loaded with boxes

Vertical reciprocating conveyors—or VRCs—make it easy to move materials between levels, such as onto a mezzanine or down to basement storage. As you might expect, this equipment involves enclosures and access features for optimum safety. In this installment of our Shoptalk series, employee-owner Christine Perry offers a quick look at these features.

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Posted in Lifting & Lift Systems|

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