June 14, 2016 - Page 14 of 16

Your Job and Low Back Pain

If you’re reading this, the odds are that you’ve either experienced low back pain or you will sometime in the future. Low back pain is the leading cause of work-related disability and a frequent reason for job absences. It’s also the second most common neurological disorder in the United States, behind only headaches.

These injuries frequently occur on the job because one of the main causes is lifting heavy objects, particularly over a period of time. This can result in a sprain or spasm in one of the back muscles or ligaments. Minor injury such as this often improves after a short period of rest.

More serious problems occur when your back is subject to repeated stress. This can result in a bulging or ruptured disc which in turn places pressure on a nerve. Irritation of the nerves is what causes the pain. If this pain becomes chronic, the situation can continue to deteriorate and work activities become increasingly difficult. Repeated injury also causes buildup of scar tissue which makes the back less flexible.

Material handling jobs involve conditions that can easily result in lower back pain. If your work involved moving large carts and other equipment, material handling tugs like our Power Tugger will help prevent injury. They enable one person to easily handle loads of up to 10,000 pounds. Ergonomic design means they also place less stress on your upper body.

Whatever your material handling needs are, DJ Products has a solution that fits. Our Sales Engineers are standing by at 800.686.2651 to answer any of your questions.

Contractor Versus Employee Do You Know the Difference?

One of the most important warehouse management tips for any business is knowing and understanding the difference between an employee and a contractor. Misclassification for businesses can result in larger tax bills or penalties for not paying employment taxes or not filing the correct tax forms. Conversely, workers will avoid higher tax bills and lost benefits if they file tax papers using the proper status designation.

Know the Difference

The basics between an employee and a contractor are:

An employee is instructed on how to do a job correctly and is controlled in the means to do so. A contractor is specifically told what needs to be done, but they do it on their own volition.

An employee is trained to do a job correctly, while a contractor is given the freedom to get a job done the way they see fit.

An employee is paid a specific wage no matter what their duties are. A contractor gives the business a specific price or an estimate, that is agreed upon by both parties, before any job is done.

What it All Means

Essentially, an employee is hired-on by the business and conforms to their company creed, goes through any training provided, and they are then expected to perform a work function using the guidelines set forth by the company.

A contractor gets hired-on at a negotiated wage for a specific job, that they will complete using their own experience and their own guidelines, as long as it conforms to safety standards and regulations.

Stay informed with more warehouse management tips, by checking out our blog at DJ Products, Inc.

Managing Your Supply Chain During Unpredictable Events: Car and Vehicle Pushers

Any number of unpredictable events can put a kink in your supply chain and put your patience and problem solving skills to the test. While you can’t avoid warehouse problems, you can take concrete steps to make sure that you are equipped with the right tools to handle any challenge. DJ Products can provide you with the equipment (such as Car and Vehicle Pushers) and warehouse management tips to help you be prepared and avoid interruptions to your business.

One of the biggest challenges involved running a warehouse is making sure that it operates as smoothly as possible even during emergencies. While major companies use a variety of data to try and predict disasters and limit time to recovery, even the most accurate models can’t foresee what Mother Nature may unleash on your factory or other key components along the supply chain.

You can employ a more effective risk management strategy by making sure that you have the equipment to quickly move products and supplies during an emergency. From car and vehicle pushers to shopping cart retrievers, we specialize in offering a wide range of powerful and affordable tools that will allow you to quickly and easily move cars, carts and even airplanes. Not only do our products aid in the day to day operations of warehouse across a variety of industries, they also serve as vital tools during emergency situations.

While many warehouse management tips may focus on people centered skills, we believe that the most important tip is to equip your employees with the tools they need to do their best work. Providing pulling and pushing equipment will allow everyone to reach peak performance.

Five Warehouse Management Tips: Industrial Cart Mover

Looking to boost warehouse efficiency this quarter with an Industrial Cart Mover? Management can take steps to provide immediate and ongoing benefits. Here are 5 warehouse management tips for faster, safer, smoother operations:

Prioritize Cleaning

In a clean warehouse, workers have a safer and more efficient workplace. Encourage employees to clean spills and messes immediately, and stick to a routine cleaning schedule.

Be Open to Feedback

Some of the best warehouse management tips come from your employees. They may spot inefficient or troublesome aspects of the warehouse that managers may not realize. Good feedback channels include daily or weekly meetings, suggestion boxes, and performance reviews.

Generate Data to Analyze Efficiency

Data can help you spot inefficient employees or specific tasks that are taking too long. When you have the data, you can make adjustments and measure the results. Consider adding more feature-rich warehouse management software that can automatically generate reports.

Speed Up Picking and Moving

Employees on the floor spend the bulk of their time in transit — finding, picking, and moving. To speed up these actions, you can rearrange inventory to prioritize different items. Better yet, add an industrial cart mover to facilitate picking and moving and prevent your workers from getting hurt or slowing down.

Fill Receiving with Experienced Workers

Lastly, pay the receiving position some respect and fill the job with warehouse veterans. Rookie receivers make mistakes that create chain reactions of inefficiencies. Senior employees make the best receivers.

Our motorized cart pushers and pullers like the CartCaddy5WP can make your warehouse run better. Talk to a Sales Engineer at 1-800-686-2651 for more info and follow our blog for more warehouse management tips.

How to Create a World-Class Warehouse

There are five essential steps to creating a world-class warehouse, according to Dr. Edward Frazelle, founder of The Logistics Institute at Georgia Tech and director of the school’s Logistics Management Series. A pioneer in modern logistics, Frazelle is an industry legend who has trained more than 50,000 logistics professionals and coached countless companies and government agencies in achieving logistics excellence.

Profile. Frazelle believes in creating profiles of every element of a warehousing operation. Profiling order, activity and planning activities makes it possible to identify the causes of problems as well as pinpoint opportunities for improvement.
Benchmark. It is necessary to determine a benchmark for warehouse performance, practices and infrastructure against which comparisons can be made to worldwide standards or future achievements. Benchmark comparisons allow you to determine the need for improvement or new technology.
Innovate. Based on the information obtained during phases 1 and 2, warehouse processes are streamlined and made as efficient as possible.
Automate. Computerize where possible to increase efficiency and productivity. Computerization should focus on simplifying tasks, increase performance and maximize resource use. Mechanize where justified to maximize production and storage density and to assist operators in performing complex tasks.
Humanize. Involve warehouse operators in the redesign process. Recognize individual performance, promote team goals and implement ergonomic improvements in every possible warehouse activity to safeguard your workforce.

The order in which the above 5 elements are applied to warehouse design and redesign is important, warns Frazelle. Keep in mind that:

Design adjustments are much easier and cheaper to make in the early profile and benchmark phases.
Mechanization investments are less flexible and more expensive than computerization.
Protect your workforce. Ultimately your most valuable resource is your workforce. They are your last element of consideration only because your workforce requirements will be dictated by the preceding elements.

Frazelle’s five elements of warehouse development can be successfully utilized to design a warehouse master plan, redesign existing operations, develop requirements for management systems and guide improvement projects.

Simple Measures Can Improve Warehouse Safety, Productivity

The bottom line advantage of improving worker safety was a recurrent theme this past week as businesses celebrated North American Occupational Safety and Health Week. The annual cost to American businesses of workplace injuries and illnesses is $171 billion. Safety improvement need not come at the expense of efficiency and productivity was the oft-promoted lesson.

“When it comes to improved productivity, safety is an overlooked area,” said Michael Davis of Sedlak Management Consultants. “A lot of times, you don’t realize how much a workmen’s compensation claim costs or the hit you take to morale and productivity if someone gets hurt on the job.” Davis suggested four easy fixes for creating a safer, more productive work environment in warehouses and distribution centers:

Create designated walkways for pedestrians and equipment. This is particularly important when forklifts or other equipment must share the same floor space with pedestrians. A low-cost solution can be as simple as outlining walkways in yellow paint and installing guardrails to protect pedestrians from equipment traffic.
Install an alert system to warn pickers of coming traffic. Mirrors can also be installed to help workers track the activity of others, particularly when picking areas are crowded or are shared by both pedestrian and vehicle traffic. Davis says an alert system can be installed for $1,500 to $4,500, a fraction of the cost of a workmen’s compensation claim.
Safety gates that protect mezzanines are required by OSHA. Unfortunately, most safety gates are manually operated and may occasionally be left open. Installing a safety gate that closes automatically better protects high traffic areas.
Sensors around automated equipment can protect workers from inadvertent injury. Robotic pickers and palletizers are often used alongside human workers to improve productivity in picking and shipping operations. Davis suggests, “the installation of a light curtain around automated equipment. That’s a system of photoelectric eyes that create a barrier around the equipment. If the beam from the photoelectric eye is broken because someone is in that area, the equipment automatically shuts off.”

Five Important Dock Safety Tips

Warehouse safety begins at the receiving and shipping docks. Safe dock procedures set the stage for the safe unloading, handling and storage of materials as well as the packing, loading and shipping of product. Identifying and addressing ergonomic challenges on the dock can directly impact worker safety and dock productivity. “You have to look at everything from what kind of trailer you’re going to receive, to whether the load is floor-loaded or unitized to what happens to it after it comes off the truck. Even the temperature inside the facility and the weather are important,” explained Brent Tymensky, VP of design engineering for Fortna Inc.

Dock safety begins with attention to five important issues:

Trailer access. The length, width, height and suspension system of a trailer generally determine the dock equipment needed. Other considerations include whether the trailer is dry or refrigerated and whether the load is unitized and fully cubed.
Dock conditions. Temperature and weather impact dock worker safety and efficiency. A canopy that keeps out cold, heat, wind, rain and snow improves working conditions and worker comfort. Air-inflatable dock seals can form a tight barrier around a trailer, keeping out the weather and reducing energy costs.
Personnel issues. The age, experience and physical condition of your workforce are factors that determine how and when automated and manual equipment are used. Adjustable conveyors that reach into a trailer can assist with manual unloading and loading procedures, reducing the physical strain on workers. While some palletized loads can be off-loaded as is, many pallet loads must be broken down manually into their components for use or proper storage. Adjustable carts and tuggers can make this work both easier and safer for dock workers.
Dock safety equipment. Vehicle restraint devices prevent trailers from exiting prematurely while workers are still on the trailer. Restraint devices range from simple wheel chucks to automated systems that bolt into the cement dock and attach to the trailer’s rear guard. A newly marketed interlocking device attaches to the trailer brake emergency airline to prevent the trailer from moving until the dock ramp is removed and the dock door closed.
Productivity and efficiency. Dock levelers, extendable conveyors and palletizing equipment all increase efficiency in retrieving and loading materials and goods. Trailer drop can significantly hinder the transition from the trailer to the dock. Levelers and vehicle restraints that support the rear of the trailer can eliminate trailer drop as equipment is moved into the trailer for loading or unloading.

More Companies Going Forklift-Free

An increasing number of companies, particularly in the manufacturing, warehousing and logistics industries, are moving toward a forklift-free environment. Safety concerns and maintenance costs are the primary factors driving this major change in material handling application.

According to a recent study by the Hyster Company, a major manufacturer of forklift trucks, only 6% of end-users know their real forklift maintenance costs and few have implemented programs to reduce those costs. Over the 20-year life of a forklift, 80% of the total costs are operating expenses. Ownership accounts for only 20% of a forklift’s total cost. The Hyster study estimates that American businesses waste more than $1 billion per year in unnecessary material handling operating costs.

Far more expensive are the human loss and liability costs directly tied to forklift injuries each year. Each year, nearly 100 U.S. workers are killed in forklift accidents and another 20,000 seriously injured. Forklift overturns cause 25% of forklift-related deaths. Medical expenses, insurance costs, workmen’s compensation and lost man-hours associated with forklift accidents cost American businesses millions of dollars each year.

According to John Neuman and Larry Tyler, writing in American Machinist, a forklift-free program can have multiple benefits, including:

reduced inventory,
improved material flow,
reduced line-side handling equipment,
reduced floor space,
increased cycle efficiency,
increased floor coordination,
increased stocking efficiency, and
decreased operating costs.

On the human side, a forklift-free environment improves investor, worker and public perception of a company’s attention to safety. It improves worker ergonomics, efficiency and production and decreases expensive lost man-hours, medical, insurance and liability costs.

Next time: Implementing a forklift-free program.

Products to Help Your Business Go Forklift-Free

There’s a growing trend, particularly in manufacturing, warehousing and logistics environments to go forklift-free (see our June 11 & 13 posts). An increasing number of businesses are choosing to replace forklift trucks with safer, ergonomic material handling products that are cheaper to own and operate. As we noted, going forklift-free can result in considerable savings in production and maintenance costs while significantly decreasing worker accidents and injuries and their associated medical, insurance, workman’s compensation and lost man-hour expenses. DJ Products can help your business transition to a safer forklift-free work environment.

At DJ Products we manufacture a full line of electric cart pullers and motorized cart pushers and tugs. Our products are ergonomically designed to eliminate the pain and strain of manually pushing and pulling heavy carts and wheeled equipment. Smaller and more maneuverable than traditional equipment like forklift trucks, walkies and riding tugs, you’ll also find our products to be less costly to purchase and maintain. Implementing forklift-free solutions with DJ Products equipment offers multiple benefits, including:

Decreased operating costs, particularly equipment purchase and maintenance costs,
Decreased floor space needed to maneuver equipment,
Decreased worker injuries and attendant medical, insurance, workman’s compensation and lost man-hour costs,
Decreased liability,
Increased plant safety,
Increased worker morale, and
Increased efficiency and productivity.

DJ Products can help you plan your transition to a forklift-free environment. We specialize in solving ergonomic material handling applications with battery-powered, walk-behind tug and tugger solutions. Many of our motorized cart products can be custom configured for adaptation to almost every heavy cart pushing or pulling application. Click here to request a free brochure or video about DJ Products’ ergonomic solutions. We also offer a free demo trial program so you can try out a CartCaddy cart pusher at your facility before purchase. Our expert Sales Engineers can discuss the details of your particular application and suggest ergonomic products that will provide the appropriate solution. Click here to contact a DJ Products Sales Engineer and begin your transition to a safe, cost effective, forklift-free work environment today.

Learning to Think Sustainably

Supply Chain Sustainability and Green Sustainable Supply Chain are the coming watchwords in the material handling and logistics industries (see our July 7 post). A green sustainable supply chain is the process of using environmentally friendly resources to create products that when used — and also when eventually discarded at the end of their life cycle — break down into components that either benefit the environment or can be recycled to create new products without harming the environment.

“The whole idea of a sustainable supply chain is to reduce costs while helping the environment,” explained Patrick Penfield of the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University in a 2007 article for MHIA’s publication On the Mhove. To gauge the cost savings of a sustainable supply chain requires that businesses think in terms of the life cycle costs of a part, piece of equipment or process. It’s merely the next step in the evolution of cost analysis, argues Penfield. “In the past,” he says, “most companies were focused on reducing unit costs. Many companies later evolved into looking at total landed costs with the onset of global trade. Companies also started looking at the usage costs with a piece of equipment.” Figuring costs based on the total life cycle of a part, piece of equipment or process is simply taking an even broader view of cost analysis.

Approaching business and industry from the broad outlook of sustainability “could be a tremendous weapon for companies to reduce costs,” Penfield believes. “There are many facets of the supply chain that could be improved by looking at it from a sustainability standpoint.” Today, companies worldwide are reviewing design and production processes and redesigning those processes to use fewer resources and less energy. In one example, Interface Corporation, a leading maker of materials for commercial interiors, decreased the horsepower requirements of a pump system by 92% simply by using shorter, fatter pipes than originally called for. Their engineer’s redesigned system “cost less to build, involved no new technology and worked better in all respects,” Penfield points out.

Next time: Using sustainability to create a competitive edge

Day: June 14, 2016