Day: September 14, 2015

The Snow is Coming to your Car Lot

The winter season is on its way and before you know it the kids will be listening closely for school closing updates on the radio. The new and used car lot owner will also be anticipating the snow with but with far less enthusiasm. It will mean a time of few customers and that is never good. Auto mechanic shops are not very fond of the winter either, there may be more tow jobs but people just won’t be as ready to take their car in for normal maintenance.

Then there are the preparations that need to be made before the storm hits. Part of this preparation can include a DJ Products car caddy vehicle pusher. With this time of year being a drain on some business, the car pusher can be a way to save some money. Using this versatile piece of equipment can keep vehicles safe from damage and prevent employees from suffering unnecessary injuries.

The car pusher can be used to move all the cars near the road away from the snow that the city is going to be pushing over the curb when they are plowing. You can use the car pusher to arrange the cars in tighter spaces without risking the damage that driving them and backing them into these spots may cause. You can also push more cars into indoor spots like the service area.

Keeping as many cars as possible indoors will prevent plenty of labor later by minimizing then number of cars that will need cleaning off later. That’s another activity that may lead to some damage and also employee injury. A lot employee working outside may slip on ice and snow left from the storm while cleaning vehicles.

Work on the car lot can’t stop due to inclement weather. The lot owner who wants to minimize costs, damage and injuries could certainly benefit from using a piece of equipment like the car pusher during the winter months.

A Cart Retriever is Necessary for the Holiday Shopping Season

The Thanksgiving holiday is also the official beginning of the shopping season. Some companies aren’t even waiting for the Friday after to have ‘door buster” sales. You can now go to some stores and shop early Thanksgiving morning. These retailers are prepared to do anything that can get them an edge on the competition.

The Thanksgiving holiday sees a real increase of customer traffic at the food market and this will continue for the next month. Retailers will want to be sure that they’ve got carts readily available for customers to use. It’s good for business as the customer just might grab that extra item or two near the cash register since it will be easily taken to the car.

There are some drawbacks to this scenario like carts being left all over your parking lot. That’s when an employee you’d rather have on the sales floor helping customers must go out and round these carts up. This can be a little dangerous as the parking lots can get crowded.

Winter weather can make the retrieval process hard on the employee as the lot may be slippery with new fallen snow and resulting ice. A DJ Products cart retriever is a great tool for managing these problems and keeping your employees safe.

Using one of these shopping cart retrievers is easy and only requires one employee. No more sending out two people to get a long line of carts with one employee on each end. They are battery powered and can operate continually for a full 12 hours without needing to be recharged.

The cart pusher is remote controlled and has an emergency stop button to help dodge that shopper who is driving too fast. The ease with which the employee can get the carts back safely to your establishment or storage area is the best reason to get one for the upcoming holiday rush and beyond.

Maintain the Flow of Holiday Shopping with a Cart Retriever

The hustle and bustle of the holiday season feels different for retail managers and employees than it does for customers. Shoppers are focused on their lists and finding bargains, while you want to make sure that they can find what they want and make purchases with few hassles. You need to make sure that things run smoothly and efficiently so customers can focus on shopping. You may be hiring extra employees for the inside of your establishment, but you will also want a DJ Products shopping cart retriever on your team to help keep things in order on the outside.

The inability to get a shopping cart or seeing a parking lot littered with runaway shopping carts can be a turnoff for customers and you do not want that. If you are in an area where there tends to be a lot of winter precipitation, you certainly do not want extra obstacles to get in the way of someone parking and quickly getting into your store.

A cart retriever can make the job of corralling carts go a lot smoother. This will free the employee who has this task up to make the cart retrieval rounds again or to help in some other capacity as needed. A cart retriever can make a dreaded task go faster and while we cannot promise that your employees will beg to do this work, we can say that a cart retriever may be good for morale since the task won’t be quite so difficult. This labor-saving device makes things easier on employees, but it also serves to keep your operations running efficiently. At this very busy time of year, you want the most sales possible and the little details like keeping carts neatly corralled can go a long way towards making sure customers view your operations in a positive light.

Powered Movers Can Take on a Starring Role in Your Operations

DJ Products makes motorized carts and powered movers that eliminate the strain and pain that can result when workers try to push heavy carts loaded with items like dirty linens or cleaning supplies.

The industrial application of motorized carts demonstrates just how useful these carts can be. However, motorized carts have been showing up on TV lately—with mixed results.

The New York Times and The Huffington Post did not think very highly of a routine on Betty White’s new show that used a motorized cart (“How is an old woman in a motorized cart driving up behind pedestrians and rudely blowing her horn to scare them even remotely clever or funny?”)

Reality television star and expectant mother Tori Spelling found a motorized cart to be useful while she planned a charity baby shower. With her due date very near, Spelling was not going to have an easy time walking around and getting things ready. She solved this problem by using a motorized cart. And since television requires people to entertain, she also found a way to keep the audience entertained by not operating the cart very well and crashing into walls.

Rather than being designed to transport people, motorized cart solutions from DJ Products are made to help people who need to transport heavy loads. They are less costly, smaller, and more maneuverable than traditional electric equipment such as motorized riding tugs.

Our carts for hospitals and the hospitality industry are designed to help make certain tasks easier and reduce the possibility of injury. For example, the Ergo Power electric cart has a variable speed handle bar twist grip that allows it to maneuver in tight aisles.

If you aren’t sure of exactly what you need, you can call our Sales Engineers. They will also be happy to explore custom applications and recommend a solution.

Use a DJ Products Cart Mover to Transport Glass

A cart mover has a number of applications, although if you were to look at the name of this product literally, you might conclude that it is only used to move carts.

For example, if you need to move heavy windows or glass from place to place in a workshop or at a work site, you can use a cart mover to do this rather than rely on human effort. No matter how many times your employees have carefully and successfully moved heavy glass objects without incident, a one-time mistake with something like this can be costly and very dangerous.

There is a risk of breaking glass each and every time you move it. Once glass is installed, it can still break, but if your work involves getting windows or stained glass positioned correctly, you want to make sure that your part of the work is done without injury or extra expenses.

A Remodeling magazine article recommends that you, “Know exactly how you’re getting the glass from the truck to the installation point.” Overall, Remodeilng says that “Smart, safe, and slow are the key words for moving and installing glass…”

A heavy-duty battery powered DJ Products cart mover is designed to push, pull, or maneuver carts or equipment up to 50,000 pounds, so it can be used for delicate mirrors, heavy glass panes, and a variety of other products. Its electric lift option and customized attachment eliminate the need for fabricating multiple attachments for each cart or piece of equipment and the mover arm rises and lowers, attaching it firmly to the bottom of any cart.

A Shopping Cart Retriever Can Keep Costs Down

Using a cart retriever to corral and keep track of shopping carts does not just address safety concerns; it addresses fiscal concerns as well. If you provide shopping carts for customers to use, then the upkeep of the carts is a part of your overhead. If they are damaged, you need new carts to replace the ones that can no longer be used. However, if a number of carts never make it back into the store because people take them and put them to use in other places, you will spend money you could use for other things to buy new shopping carts.

A 2006 article from The New York Times said that in 2005, one company that hired people for the specific task of getting back shopping carts found that their “retrievers returned 86,000 carts from the streets of the metropolitan [New York City] area.” At this time, the carts were $90 each, so finding them saved quite a bit of money.

A DJ Products shopping cart retriever helps employees to quickly gather carts and keep them close to the store so there are fewer stray carts available for those who would be tempted to take a cart for their own use.

The retriever attaches to the back of the line of up to fifty shopping carts. The cart retriever pushes the line of carts from behind, following the direction that the operator steers as he guides them from in front. Once he gets to the front of the store, he is free to head back out to the parking lot with the shopping cart mover to collect more carts.

Casinos: Don’t Gamble with Employee Safety–Get Motorized Carts

If you own a resort and casino, don’t take a chance that your employees are able to transport heavy loads with regular carts. Get motorized power carts so that your workers can move linens and supplies as necessary without injury or strain.

A Powered Housekeeping Cart or a Motorized Linen Cart can haul loads of up to 700 pounds with variable speed twist grips that allow the operator to travel at speeds between 0 and 3 mph. These carts can eliminate the strain and injury that can result from manually pushing supplies and linens with carts, especially where carpeting makes it difficult to push.

While the people out front like dealers and food service staff keep things going where the customers can see, you also need to make sure that your behind-the-scenes operations are also running smoothly. You don’t what repetitive injuries to get in the way of efficiency because your guests are relying on you to provide seamless service.

You may also find that a Motorized Dump Hopper, which is a heavy-duty battery powered tilt truck designed to haul up to 2000 pounds of trash or debris, can be of great assistance. Again, you rely on the people out front as well as the people who keep your facilities clean to stay in business. You want to give them the equipment they need to get the job done without injury.

For more information about applications and environments conducive to using our heavy cart mover application, call DJ Products at 1-800-686-2651. When you call, you can also ask about how our products can be customized to fit your specific needs.

Use a Tow Tugger to Transport Carts Safely

DJ Products offers tow tugs like the CartCaddy Shorty that are designed to help workers move heavy carts and equipment efficiently and safely. Our motorized cart movers increase productivity by reducing the number of operators needed to move a heavy cart since tuggers like the CartCaddy Shorty can be operated by one employee.

One employee can move heavy carts and equipment safely with the CartCaddy Shorty because it attaches to the swivel-castered end of a cart and provides the pushing and pulling power necessary for easy turning and intricate maneuvering. It has a variable speed twist grip for forward and reverse directions and can be operated at speeds from from 0 to 3 mph. This means that it can keep up with the operator so he or she will not become frustrated or need to try to yank it or force it to move. Operator frustration such as that can cause problems and our equipment was designed to avoid those kinds of situation.

Another important feature of the CartCaddy Shorty is the safety stop. When the safety stop is activated, the machine stops immediately to prevent any possible injury. We design our equipment to be as safe as possible and to prevent strain, however there are situations that we cannot foresee. This is why an operator has the option of stopping the tugger immediately if necessary.
Sufficient power can also be a safety concern since you do not want to buy equipment that stops working in the middle of the job. The CartCaddyShorty Power Tugger can be operated continuously for 16 hours before you need to recharge it.

Safely Move Stalled Vehicles with a Car Pusher

Bigger does not always equal better and you can find surprising strength in small machines. Such is the case with a DJ Products car pusher. You might imagine that you need something as big as or bigger than a vehicle to move that vehicle, but you do not. Check out this video that shows how one person can push a stalled SUV into a garage using our CarCaddy car pusher.

Our CarCaddy car and vehicle pusher is battery operated and designed to push vehicles that have pneumatic tires, such as cars, trucks, campers, and buses. It can push cars and trucks up to 20,000 pounds on flat ground and up to 10,000 pounds on 3% grade. And if that is not enough, you can opt for a Heavy Duty Motor/Transaxle Power Upgrade so you can push cars and trucks that weigh up to 50,000 pounds. You can also opt to add foam filled tires, snow and ice tires, a safety horn or a flashing light.

But for now, during the heat of summer, you and your employees will be glad to have the CarCaddy to help move a stalled vehicle quickly and safely. The CarCaddy can minimize damage to the body (including back and shoulder strain) and lessen the time one has to spend in the sun moving a vehicle. This time of year it is important to lessen the chances of overexertion and heatstroke.

Whether a car or a larger vehicle needs to be pushed off the road, along a highway or across a parking lot into a service center, you can count on the CarCaddy.

Reduce Risk of Food Processing Plant Injury with Industrial Tuggers

A study from commercial insurer CNA that examined the risks associated with working in the food processing industry found that “the types of incidents most likely to cause worker injuries are manual material handling and physical stress; struck by and struck against; and falls on the same level.” The report also noted that while the industry has increased its use of power movers, there was still a reliance on manual transport that lead to injuries that may have been prevented.

As the reports also states, “Profitability in the food processing industry depends on the rapid production of final product and its timely shipment to customers. The continuous rapid movement of large amounts of raw materials and finished products throughout the production cycle exposes workers to injuries resulting from contact with moving objects.”

We know that you cannot afford to slow down operations. We also know that you would like to avoid costly worker compensations claims and the loss of productivity and morale that go along with those claims. So, try using a DJ Products powered mover, like the CartCaddyShorty for example.

The CartCaddyShorty can be used to transport a variety of heavy loads, including things like large quantities of cold cuts or a cart full of cookie dough. This small, but powerful tugger is one the most maneuverable tugs you’ll find today.

While you can continue to allow your employees to push heavy carts because they are ‘getting the job done,’ consider that ergonomically designed equipment will still help them complete their tasks with the added benefit of preventing strains and sprains that can harm your staff and your financial outlook.