Tag: employee safety

Speed is Crucial, but Not At the Cost of Safety

Your business depends on your employees’ ability to receive and then distribute your product to your customers.  The quicker and more accurately this can be done, the better – unless of course it puts those valuable employees at an increased risk of injury.

In order for your warehouse or distribution center to operate as smoothly and efficiently as possible, your equipment needs to be just as safe as it is fast or you actually run the risk of slowing the order filling process while you deal with the circumstances surrounding the injury.  Losing one of your valued employees to injury can seriously hamper your efforts even if you are a reasonable large company – in a very small environment where each person is critical to operations, that loss of one person can be crippling.

Forklifts, reach trucks and electric jacks all come with a very long list of warnings because material handling can be a very dangerous job if safety guidelines aren’t properly followed.  Employees are required to travel reasonably long distances with loads of product that often weigh thousands of pounds – attempting this on a machine that isn’t designed for safety can lead to very serious injuries or even death.

The lifts and carts from DJ Products are designed to be the safest material handling equipment that your employees can use.  Built in design features ensure that every employee, regardless of height or size can move and lift material in such a way that any chance of injury is dramatically decreased when compared to manual material handling

It just so happens that the safest material handling equipment available also happens to be among the most efficient.  DJ Products equipment is capable of transporting heavy loads quickly, quietly and safely regardless of the distance between the loading dock and the storage rack – and you’ll be able to use your electric cart for a full eight hour shift on a single charge, so there is no need to worry about equipment failure.  Remember that the fastest equipment isn’t always the most efficient, and when it comes to fulfilling orders and keeping your business competitive efficiency trumps speed every time.

Reducing Strains, Aches and Pains

The biggest danger in the workplace may not stem from the loudest crash or ugliest fall, though these instances can cause injury they are pretty rare when compared the injuries relating to the use of poorly designed material handling equipment.

Many distribution center managers understand that the use of forklifts and powered carts makes their workers jobs easier, but they fail to realize that easier may not always be safer.  In order to prevent overuse and repetitive stress injuries the equipment that your employees are using needs to be ergonomically designed.

All of the battery powered lifts and carts offered by DJ Products are designed to move without putting any undue stress on your employees’ bodies and they also put the material in the best possible position for lifting.  This keeps nagging aches and strains, which can ultimately result in the need for time off, to a minimum at the same time as increasing the staff’s overall productivity.

Operating your facility with equipment that forces your employees to strain to get the job done or that puts their bodies in uncomfortable positions while completing everyday tasks puts everyone at risk for injury.  This can lead to more absences, lower productivity and higher rates of workman’s compensation claims costing your operation quite a bit of money in the long run.  By upgrading to the highly efficient, battery powered equipment from DJ Products you can all but eliminate these risks from your workplace and you can greatly improve the physical portion of the job for your employees.

Outdated equipment can put your employees and your productivity in jeopardy, and though a material handling equipment upgrade will have an initial investment – the benefits of healthy and more productive employees are well worth the cost.

A Little Goes a Long Way

When it comes to performing any job, it’s imperative that workers have both the “know how” and the proper equipment to accurately perform every task they encounter.  An employee attempting to figure out how to use a piece of equipment as he goes can result in plenty of wasted time and even put people at risk of injury.

Upgrading every piece of computer and material handling equipment at once could bring about too much of an expense for some distribution centers to bear, but taking small steps to ensure that you have all of the equipment necessary and that all of your employees know how to use it is a big step towards optimal efficiency. 

Having only one big, bulky forklift that is constantly breaking down doesn’t make much sense when you receive and ship out dozens of pallets worth of material per shift.  In the long run, you could save money on operating costs and move more freight if you scrapped the outdated forklift in favor of two smaller battery powered lifts.  Battery powered lifts from DJ Products are designed to be safe and easy for any employee to learn how to operate, which could mean a lot less waiting and a lot more working.

These battery powered lifts and carts from DJ Products can also last an entire shift on a single charge, so there is no time wasted changing fuel tanks and fewer moving parts means that there is less chance for equipment breakdown and a smaller budget required for equipment maintenance.

Streamlining or optimizing can sound like overwhelming processes to undertake, especially for a business trying to survive during these tough economic times, but properly training your employees and providing them with the right equipment may be all that needs to be done to make your operation as efficient as possible.

What’s the Most Expensive Employee Injury?

Employers have tons of incentive to worry about workplace injury: in addition to employee welfare, getting hurt on the job costs employers billions every year.

When you think about employee injuries, you might think about scary incidents like fingers getting caught in equipment. However, it’s the built-up effects of repetitive tasks and physical labor that lead to the most expensive injuries in the workplace. These are the same injuries that can be prevented by ergonomic material handling solutions.

Let’s look at the most expensive employee injury: overexertion.

Overexertion: Pushing, Pulling, & Lifting Our Way to Injuries

Employee-Injuries-Are-Costly

The largest direct costs for employers stem from overexertion injuries. According to the Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety, overexertion includes physical tasks like pushing, pulling, lifting, carrying, holding, and throwing. Such injuries added up to more than $14 billion in direct costs in 2011.

When including indirect costs, the numbers can increase exponentially. Indirect costs include lost time, loads of paperwork, and increased insurance premiums.

All told, the most expensive employee injuries include (with annual cost as of 2011):

  • Overexertion ($14.2B)
  • Slip-and-fall ($13.5B)
  • Struck by object/equipment ($5.6B)
  • Motor vehicle accidents ($2.4B)
  • Repetitive motions ($2.0B)

Ergonomic equipment like the CartCaddy help prevent multiple causes of these expensive injuries. By reducing the heavy exertion and repetitive tasks of many jobs, workers avoid some of these big worry sources, and also have more energy and focus to avoid other injuries.

If rising insurance costs, fear of worker compensation claims and a focus on workplace safety are important in your industry, talk to us about CartCaddy safety solutions.

 

Image Credit:  DepositPhotos.com

Ergonomic Carts Can Help Struggling Hospitality Industry

Staycations and a sharp decline in business travel during the recession have pushed the U.S. hospitality industry to the edge. In recession for the past 24 months, overall occupancy rates continue to erode despite a slight seasonal uptick in June. Occupancy rates at U.S. hotels, motels and resorts have been falling even more rapidly than before over the past eight weeks and the immediate future doesn’t look good, according to industry watcher Hotelmarketing.com.

Continued concern about family finances and potential job loss have kept families at home. Group travel is down, and tours are being cancelled for failure to meet minimums. Businesses have cut travel to hold the line on expenses. Convention and trade show attendance is down. Hotels and motels are competing for a narrowing traveler pool that has forced many to cut staff until the economy improves and the hospitality industry rebounds.

Savvy hoteliers are turning to ergonomically-designed hospitality carts that allow a single employee to accomplish a greater workload with less physical effort. Ergonomic design eliminates strains and pains that workers can develop from pushing heavy laundry, cleaning and linen carts at hotels, motels, casinos and resorts. Powered housekeeping carts and clean and dirty linen carts allow a single employee to safely manage heavy loads of linens or cleaning supplies.

Powered platform carts and electric carts allow easy and safe movement of supplies, materials, parts or machinery from one area of a facility to another. Compact design permits operators to easily and safely maneuver carts through heavily traveled hotel corridors and narrow behind-the-scenes hallways. Motorized dump hoppers makes trash removal a breeze.

DJ Products, the national leader in the manufacture of ergonomic motorized carts and tugs, offers a full line of material handling products designed to meet the needs of the hospitality industry. Our motorized cart retro kit can be adapted and installed on any cart to increase safety and productivity. Visit the DJ Products website for more information.

Taking the Pain out of Cart Retrieval

Nearly all large retail establishments have a multitude of shopping carts to serve their customers and invariably at several points throughout the day; many of those shopping carts are strewn about the parking lot.  This leaves the burden of cart collection on the employees of the establishment, and while its good to have job security, especially in this day and age, this particular duty is probably among the least favorite of many retail employees.

Carts get left in the parking lot regardless of the weather or temperature outside, leaving employees having to go out in the rain, snow, sleet and freezing temperatures to perform this high labor duty.  Collecting just a few carts at a time could make the process take far too long, and trying to collect a dozen all at once could lead to an unnecessary injury – manual cart collection, especially in less than favorable weather, is a lose-lose situation.

A cart retriever from DJ Products can take all of the hassle out of collecting shopping carts by removing the stress and strain on the employee and allowing the task to be performed at a much faster pace.  DJ Products cart retriever can easily handle a line of up to fifty shopping carts, allowing an entire parking lot to be cleaned of carts in a fraction of the time it would take to perform the collection manually.

The Cart Retriever makes this once dreaded job much safer and much easier and it frees up many more man hours for employees to attack other jobs inside the store to potentially create more revenue.  When employees aren’t pre-occupied with cart collection, more product can make its way on to the shelves, more customers can be served and the establishment can be kept organized and clean.  Increasing productivity in the workplace without risking employee safety is the best way to increase profitability and the Cart Retriever does just that.