lifts | Warehousing Insights | Material Handling Systems - Part 20
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Seeing Around Corners: The Danger Spots in Warehouses & Factories

August 28, 2012
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pallet rack row end and forklift traffic

In an industrial environment, intersections can be dangerous. With fast-moving workers who are busy and probably distracted, and fast-moving forklifts that may have loads elevated that can obstruct the driver’s view, corners, ends of rack rows, and intersections can be the cause of many accidents. Whether it’s a worker walking and carrying a load, or a forklift on its way to the next pick, the chances of collisions, injuries, and damages are greater at intersections than most anywhere else. What are your options when it comes to making your intersections safer?

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Posted in Forklift - Pedestrian Safety|

How to Avoid Loading Dock Injuries

August 3, 2012
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loading dock with forklifts moving

Since 25% of all warehouse injuries occur at the loading dock, warehousing and manufacturing operations need to pay close attention to this area. Shipping and receiving docks both suffer similar problems in that they are bustling places. At peak times they can get very busy, and when people are pressed for time, they become careless. So, what are the common injury types, and what can you do to avoid them?

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Posted in Docks & Shipping|

Factors for Distribution Center Sustainability

July 18, 2012
by

distribution center conveyor system

At Modex 2012, Hytrol Conveyor’s Boyce Bonham sat down with DCVelocity to discuss distribution center sustainability. We’ve linked the video below, which is worth a few moments of your time. How do initiatives to work greener, smarter, and better affect warehouses and distribution operations? Not surprisingly, these initiatives often save money, at least over the long term.

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Posted in Warehousing & Distribution|

Protecting Order Pickers in Rack Aisles

June 22, 2012
by

Picking orders in a pallet rack aisle

“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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Posted in Safety & Ergonomics|

Securing High Value Inventory on Pallet Racks

May 17, 2012
by

pallet rack aisle

It’s always difficult to secure high-value inventory in the warehouse, and it’s even harder when the load resides in pallet racks, which are larger, have a conventionally open design, and more difficult to secure than inventory that sits on shelves or in carousels or within tool cribs.  Pallet rack loads can be palletized or stacked on decking, but either way they are more “open” than other types of inventory.  What are your alternatives?

  1. Use upper bays to keep it out of reach.
  2. Utilize secure aisles.
  3. Store it in a separate area/facility.
  4. Utilize rack-mounted security cages.
  5. Utilize solid-side rack security enclosures.

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Posted in Pallet & Warehouse Racks|

How to Make Warehouse & Plant Visitors Safer: A Guide

February 29, 2012
by

warehouse visitors or guests
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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Posted in Safety & Ergonomics|

9 Ways to Reduce Product Damage in Your Warehouse

February 16, 2012
by

crushed box

In warehouse & manufacturing operations, things get broken. They break in a number of ways, and it’s expensive. You’ve probably seen product broken or damaged in amazing and improbable ways  if you’ve been in this business for any length of time. We had a client once buy a bunch of mismatched, used industrial shelving (not from us), only to see it collapse and dump thousands of tiny aircraft components on the floor. It had to be swept up and discarded since it was all mixed up and visually impossible to sort.

Those are extraordinary examples, but everyday inventory damage that cost “only” a few hundred or thousand dollars can savage your bottom line.

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Posted in Warehousing & Distribution|

To-Do List for Moving a Warehouse

February 7, 2012
by

warehouse reconfiguration

Over the past four decades, we’ve seen plenty of operations move. We’ve installed entirely new conveyor systems into functioning operations without disturbing the flow of existing work. We’ve seen companies pick up an entire distribution operation and move it across two hundred feet of parking lot into another building. It’s not new territory for us, and if you have managed a manufacturing or warehousing operation long, it’s probably not for you either.

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Posted in Warehousing & Distribution|

How the Movies Get Material Handling Wrong

November 15, 2011
by

Mateial handling movies

If you are in the warehousing or material handling industry, you’ll find yourself identifying warehouse and handling equipment in movies or television shows quite often. Many of us have seen, for instance, the NFL graphics of a large distribution system used on Fox network for years. I’ve pointed out Hytrol conveyors in movies to my wife for years, to the point where she says it first when she sees it.

For fun, we have put together a list of the more famous scenes in entertainment history involving material handling equipment, and how it could have been done better.

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Posted in Warehousing & Distribution|

Smart Labor Management Helps Cut Warehouse Costs

May 22, 2011
by

packing operations

It’s important to control costs in your operation. What are some warehousing cost-cutting methods you can employ that don’t require extensive investment or re-tooling? Most of the costs of warehousing operations fall into the following categories:

  • People
  • Real Estate, Utilities & other Fixed Costs
  • Inventory
  • Technology

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Posted in Warehousing & Distribution|

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