Conveyors are often installed overhead or suspended from the ceiling to help conserve floor space or to interface with mezzanines or platforms. This  may create potential fall hazards. Loads can fall from inclined conveyors as they are conveyed up or down, or be subject to other factors that can cause a fall from any elevated line. Even on a floor mounted conveyor a spill can split a case, land on an order pickers’ toes, or damage inventory.

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What goes up…

In warehousing and storage operations where inventory is stored high on racks, stacked on floors, slotted into on multi-level shelving, mezzanine deck-overs or on suspended/overhead conveyor as it moves, there is one constant: things will fall. They fall because they’re stacked wrong. They fall because an order picker or a forklift bumps them. Things fall due to seismic activity, machine stops, or silly mistakes. Sometimes it seems like they fall for no reason at all.

What can you do to “stop the drop”?

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Supply chain expo Modex, held every other year in Atlanta, GA, offers attendees access to the latest manufacturing and supply chain technologies.  More than 800 exhibitors from industry, commerce, and government displayed their supply chain solutions on the 180,000 square foot show floor.

During the show, Cisco-Eagle demonstrated our automated forklift safety system, AisleCop®, a Best New Innovation Finalist for the MHI Innovation Award.  When possible, we snuck away from our booth to tour the floor and connect with some of the industry’s leading innovators.

One of the key trends we’re seeing organizations emphasize this year is safety.  To get a sense of how manufacturers are handling safety, we posed the following question:

“What are some of the key trends/ways you are seeing organizations shape safety in the workplace this year?”

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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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Take a look at your conveyor – do you think it’s safe? Are there sufficient guardrails? Are operators wearing loose clothing? Are visitors allowed near running lines? Because conveyor seems safe at a glance, it’s an often-overlooked hazard. Used correctly, of course, it is a safe way to increase productivity.

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