In its 2011 “Skills Gap in Manufacturing” report, the Manufacturing Institute laid out the situation: as American manufacturing continues to expand, a lack of critical skills in the workforce is becoming an increasingly common limitation. In many places, we see classified ad pages full of jobs for skilled positions like CNC machinists, high-volume assembly technicians, welders, or electricians. With a reported 600,000 unfilled jobs in the manufacturing sector, it’s something that has to be addressed.

Certainly, lower-cost foreign labor is still a drain, but there is little manufacturers can do about that. What can manufacturers do?

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We talk safety a lot,  mainly because the environment we work in, and the customers we work with use equipment like forklifts and conveyors in areas where interaction with people is unavoidable. We believe the first responsibility we have to our customers, and the first responsibility our customers have to themselves, is safety. Many of the wonderful benefits of material handling equipment comes with the risk of injury. It’s powerful machinery, and people must pick from it, walk near, it or otherwise interact with it.

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You want your company to be a leader in your field. You want to provide the best product to your customers at the best price, and cut needless costs, transactions, touches, and clutter that inhibit productivity. The term “lean production system” was coined in 1988, and manufacturers have been honing their operations to conform to lean principles ever since.

It starts with making sure every part of your organization is doing its job well; and is armed by process to execute its mission.

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Small parts are more difficult to count, measure and handle. They tend to cause more errors than case picking or larger component orders. If you are having errors, you should try to define the causes — and the suspects abound. Can you find out what’s causing the errors? Once you do, what happens next? Here are some common causes and solutions to this issue.

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Conveyor safety should always be a top concern. With more than 50 workplace fatalities a year where conveyors are the primary source of injury and workplace accidents accounting for nearly 25% of all workers’ compensation claims, you must pay attention to industry standard safety practices.

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In recent years, many vendors have created products to help increase pedestrian safety in warehouses, factories, and other areas where forklifts operate. This is no wonder: accidents in this area are far too frequent, and often very devastating or even fatal. Because Cisco-Eagle provides such solutions, we have been asked about the compliance of these products to industry standards, such as the AIAG’s Pedestrian & Vehicle Safety Guidelines.

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Manufacturing Automation has taken huge steps forward in recent years, helping companies become safer and more efficient. Technology such as robotics for picking, packing, or welding is constantly advancing, making systems better, and smarter, each year. Vision systems alone are undergoing a revolution in terms of effectiveness. This type of automation is also more affordable every year, while the cost of just about everything else – labor, energy, raw materials, and insurance – is rising.

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According to the United States Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics there are currently more than 691,000 warehousing and storage workers on the job in the United States, and that’s probably a low number, given that many factories and other commercial facilities have warehouse or restock areas that may not be classified that way.

With that many people constantly working in or around potentially hazardous materials, forklifts, near storage areas, and around machines, safety concerns and strategies are a primary issue for warehouses, factories and other industrial operations. Where do you start when you’re working toward a safer operation? Is training enough? Will equipment and systems work on their own?

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Most companies who implement surveillance programs and other security measures do it because they want to address employee related theft. In industries like warehousing, it’s a common problem,  and it costs up to $15 billion in lost inventory every year. It’s been known for years that companies with excellent security measures can also expect to be more productive, but that’s always been correlation, and the two haven’t been linked by cause. That may have changed based on a recent study.

“Cleaning House: The Impact of Information Technology Monitoring on Employee Theft and Productivity,” takes a look at how firm investments in technology – based employee monitoring impact both misconduct and productivity. The study makes a persuasive case that pilferage is an issue that hinges on management style more than individual ethics.

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Studies indicate that order pickers spend too much time walking. Distribution center employees routinely spend more than  half their day walking, not picking orders, packing orders, or replenishing stock. They’re going from point to point, burning man hours getting where they need to be, not working. And that’s the average — for really poorly designed operations, it’s worse.

As they tire, workers pick slower, pick less accurately, and work more dangerously — almost a zombie like situation! Every bad thing that can happen in a warehouse operation is amplified, the more time employees spend walking.

Check out our most recent Info-graphic, “Walking is the Walking Death of Order Picking Productivity”  for more information on ways you can combat this issue.

More information:

• Ways to reduce needless walking
• When it comes to order picking, don’t walk the walk
• Gravity flow vs. shelving