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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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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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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Ergonomics in the warehouse is a constant focus that each operation looks to improve. You want your workers to perform better each day while reducing factors that contribute to missed time and injuries. One way to achieve this is by adding workbenches to your facility. When built to the right specifications, workbenches help people work faster, more accurately and more ergonomically. That’s why we’ve added a new guide to workstations.

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Every facility fights a constant battle to keep its equipment and product safe and secure from theft. You want to maintain access for high-value items while also limiting availability to only those that really need to handle them. Our new guide to industrial security is here to help you find the right security options to fit your operations.

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Pallet racks are safe and stable storage for pallets and bulk loads in warehouses, factories and other facilities, but you should be aware of the kind of dangers they pose when misapplied, modified or neglected. In any safety program, you’re always looking for risks you can prevent. What are some avoidable risks when it comes to pallet rack?

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As with all equipment in your facility, your workers are important parts of the operations process and the bottom line. Keeping them safe is always a high priority, but just as important is making sure they can be comfortable (or at least as comfortable as allowed) so that performance and productivity have less of a chance of faltering.  You want to protect the human body from unnecessary strain and stress in all situations, but while standing is an area easy to offer help and reduce fatigue.

Applying the use of anti-fatigue mats throughout your facility can not only aid in this never-ending quest to protect workers but also enhance areas not thought of as important for continuous care.

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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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Maybe you’ve reached a point in your business where automation seems inevitable. You have to scale up to keep up, and you need new technology. We advise companies on this transition, and it can start with smaller changes than you might think. But if you haven’t broken the seal yet, you might be wondering: how do I discuss this with my employees?

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The right accessories make your forklifts safer, more efficient and more productive. Because forklifts are a staple of most every warehouse, finding ways to make them more versatile and safer will always pay off. We believe that every forklift and warehouse can work better, and have released this new forklift accessories guide that shares some of our experience on the subject.

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