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.
How to Safely Store Gas Cylinders
October 26, 2010
by Scott Stone
Tags: security, gas cylinders, LPG tanks, propane tank storage
Posted in Safety & Ergonomics|
A Quick Guide to Reducing Warehouse Costs
September 29, 2010
by Scott Stone
Over at the Operations & Fulfillment site, Curt Barry has written a brief, informative piece on reducing warehouse costs. In particular during a difficult economic climate, cost reduction is at the top of mind for distribution operations.
Tags: labor management, distribution center, product slotting, warehouse productivity, ROI
Posted in Warehousing & Distribution|
Shipping Docks & Safety: Dealing with Blind Spots
August 17, 2010
by Scott Stone
Shipping & receiving docks are a particularly dangerous area of most operations because so much activity takes place in a confined space. You have truck loading, unloading, staging, inspections, and much more. You have people like order pickers, drivers and guests potentially in the mix. In your average warehouse, the docks take up 20% of the square footage but host 80% of the activity. As you know, at times that activity can be fast-paced – even frenzied as full pallets are taken in, or loaded ones are being loaded into trailers. This is a time rife with possibilities for accidents. How can you prevent them?
Tags: warehouse safety, forklift safety, shipping & receiving, Safety & Ergonomics, dock layout
Posted in Docks & Shipping|
Forklift Safety: Don’t Blame the Driver
June 24, 2010
by Scott Stone
Most forklift accidents are blamed on operator error, but that is just partially true – and something of a cop-out. Rough estimates say that a quarter of forklift accidents could be avoided by addressing environmental concerns. When you eliminate those, it helps you understand better when a driver is truly ineffective, or just hamstrung by the way your warehouse is set up. In other words, before you point the finger at the driver, take a look at your operation. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: OSHA, warehouse safety, forklift safety
Posted in Forklift - Pedestrian Safety|
This Forklift Accident Was Preventable
February 16, 2010
by Scott Stone
You can see some of the mistakes happening in this video. Others aren’t so obvious.
Tags: warehouse safety, pallet racks, forklift safety, industrial accident
Posted in Safety & Ergonomics|
Guide to Forklift Safety for Pedestrians
January 18, 2010
by Scott Stone
Take a few minutes to watch this video from WorkSafeBC on how to prevent forklift injuries from a pedestrian’s point of view.
As a pedestrian in a forklift environment, it’s your responsibility to keep yourself safe. Anyone who runs a warehouse or industrial facility understands the dangers, and drivers should be trained. Do you train the pedestrians, the order pickers, the managers, and vendors who sometimes roam your facility and are exposed to forklift traffic? Watch the video. It’s 12 minutes long, and worth every second.
Tags: Manufacturing, industrial safety, warehouse safety, storage systems, forklift safety, warehousing, Pallet Rack
Posted in Forklift - Pedestrian Safety|
Horizontal Carousels: Why Top Drive is Better
January 6, 2010
by Scott Stone
The age-old argument of top-versus bottom-driven horizontal carousels comes up all too frequently (at least among carousel people). You may think it doesn’t matter that much but in fact, it makes all the difference in the world. Supporting something from underneath makes sense. After all, trains, cars and most rolling objects are bottom-supported. Yet, the best designed horizontal carousels in the world are top-supported units that outperform bottom-supported units in both speed and efficiency. How can that be?
Posted in Automation, Labor & Efficiency|
Warehouse Safety: Distracted Forklift Drivers
January 6, 2010
by Scott Stone
If you’ve ever stopped at a traffic light, and shuddered at the texting, teenage (or all too often, an adult) driver in the next lane, you probably thought this is an irresponsible person who shouldn’t be behind the wheel. Given statistics that smart phone users are impaired as drunk drivers, it’s a serious and deadly issue; most states have laws specifically forbidding texting on the road. The question is, do you tolerate that kind of distractions for forklift drivers in your warehouse? Should you have the same rules? (Short answer: yes).
Tags: Pallet Rack, forklift safety, distracted driving, warehousing
Posted in Forklift - Pedestrian Safety|
How to Improve Order Picking without Automation
November 20, 2009
by Scott Stone
Cliff Holste at Supply Chain Digest (opens in a new window) has a good piece on ways to improve picking productivity.
Distribution centers will benefit from emerging automated case picking technologies, but those don’t fit for every operation, at every level. They’re also expensive upgrades, so your ROI has to be considered as well.
Tags: Warehouse Management, warehousing, order fulfillment, distribution center, ROI, Order Picking & Fulfillment
Posted in Order Picking & Fulfillment|
Ways to Protect Overhead & Dock Doors from Forklift Damage
November 4, 2009
by Scott Stone
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.
Posted in Safety & Ergonomics|