industrial safety Archives

What are Some of the Ergonomic Risk Factors in Industrial Settings?

Ergonomic Risk Factors

Warehouses and other other industrial workplaces that involve primarily physical labor often suffer periods of low productivity due to employee injuries. Lessen this risk by creating a workplace that better accommodates your employees’ capabilities, a process known as ergonomics.

Common Injury-Prone Workplace Activities

When designing the layout and flow of your workplace, here are three main areas that should be addressed:

Repetitive Tasks

A number of industrial jobs include repetitive tasks that are governed by the work process and production goals. These movements, which can be accompanied by awkward postures, cause undue stress on muscles, ligaments and joints. The result is repetitive motion injuries, such as carpal tunnel syndrome, that may become chronic if not treated successfully.

Excessive Force

Moving heavy loads is a common factor behind many workplace injuries. Employees may develop muscle fatigue trying to lift too much weight, lifting frequently or lifting using poor form. Shifting the burden to battery-powered industrial tugs greatly reduces the risk of lifting injuries.

Awkward Postures

Lack of appropriate ergonomic design can force employees to perform tasks using awkward postures that overload muscles and push joints beyond their optimum range of motion. It’s a double whammy when this situation is compounded by repetitive movements.

Reduce Work-Related Injuries with Industrial Tugs from DJ Products

Our electric industrial tugs, such as the popular CartCaddy, let employees easily move loads up to 10,000 pounds on their own. These tugs include ergonomic features that allow for easy and stress-free maneuvering of loads across any surface.

Visit our website or call 800.686.2651 to learn more from our helpful sales engineers.

How to Take the Risk Out of the Trash Room

Handling trash is no excuse for neglecting the cleanliness of your dumpster room. In addition to being an eyesore that affects your professional reputation, a messy trash room is a safety hazard for members of your staff.

Tom Van Sickle, general manager of DJ Products, explains the negative impact of a sloppy trash room and offers tips for maintaining a tidy and safe dumpster area.

Drawbacks of a Messy Trash Room

• Overall productivity suffers when you have to hire temporary or permanent replacements for injured staff members.

• Many cities impose fines if trash is not well-contained.

• If you’re a property manager, you’ll find that poor waste management affects tenant morale, resulting in complaints, high resident turnover and bad online reviews.

The Key to Effective Trash Removal

A sloppy trash room usually results from a lack of proper equipment. Dumpsters are heavy and bulky, making them difficult to move with two people. Therefore, staff members resist putting forth the effort when they’re at risk of incurring a serious injury.

Our WasteCaddy electric dumpster mover allows a single employee to maneuver trash bins weighing up to 5,000 pounds, even on inclines, or snow and ice. One of our satisfied clients refers to the WasteCaddy as “an extra employee.”

WasteCaddy: Eco-Friendly Solution to Trash Management Problems

Put your staff to work on more important tasks. We have the right dumpster mover to fulfill the needs of any operation, big or small. Call 800.686.2651 or use our convenient online chat feature to consult with one of our friendly sales engineers.

The Business Case for Investing in Equipment that Prevents Back Injuries

DJ Products Waste Caddy is an Investment in Your Employees’ Health

Data from an older article stated that on average, nearly 50 workers are injured during any given minute of the work week. The American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) published a 2002 report that workplace safety programs benefit both your company and your employees. Fast-forward to today. This data makes a good business case that using WasteCaddy dumpster movers to prevent back injuries is a wise investment.

Safety by the Numbers

In that article, workplace injuries resulted in $128 billion in losses in 1996, which equated to 25 percent of pre-tax net profits. Even in today’s business environment, indirect costs can inflate direct costs by a factor of 20. Some of these include:

• Hiring, training and paying replacement labor

• Reduced productivity

• Investigation time and implementation of corrective measures

• Absenteeism and low employee morale

• Poor reputation in the community and industry

Many of these costs can continue long after the actual occurrence of the injury.

Raising Safety Awareness

The report cited a survey showing that employers buy into the importance of heightened safety practices regarding business and human costs. The top two reasons given were the cost of workers’ compensation insurance and the “right thing to do.”

There is real-life data to support the cost-effectiveness of safety programs:

• Companies have seen a return of up to $6 for every $1 spent on workplace safety.

• After investing in their safety program, a West Virginia coal mining company saw its workers’ compensation rate drop to $1.28 per $100 in payroll, compared to a competitor’s rate of $13.78.

Reduce Back Injuries with Electric Tugs from DJ Products

Our WasteCaddy dumpster mover enables a single employee to safely and easily handle one of the more labor-intensive tasks in the workplace. Call 800.686.2651 to learn more.

Riding an Experiential Trend, Breweries Enter the Hotel Market

Use of Industrial Caddies Can Keep Your Employees Safe When Moving Heaving Objects Like Kegs

Breweries of all sizes seem to have found their niche somewhere in the market. Everything from global retailers to local micro-breweries see success, but one beer-maker has decided to take things a step further with a hotel theme based on brewery-related tourism.

Start of a Trend?

Stay and play destinations have been around for centuries, but few, if any, have been developed around the concept of a brewery. With micro-brews becoming more popular every year, it was probably only a matter of time before someone decided to try a destination brewery concept. What remains to be seen is if the first one will be a one-off experiment with questionable results, or if the hotel’s success leads to other micro- and macro-brewers designing their own beer-themed affiliated hotels. It’s likely that you will have an answer to that question within the next couple of years.

Unique Challenges for Brewery-Themed Hotels

Hotels that cater to a specialty clientele usually have to provide more to their guests to make up for the higher price. This can include hauling around more items, requiring more manpower, or specialized equipment that can do most of the heavy lifting. With a hotel attached to a brewery, chances are that many kegs of beer will need to be moved around, requiring the use of powered hotel carts. These carts can reduce staffing, cut down on service time, and reduce staff injuries considerably.

To find out more about our hotel maintenance solutions, give us a call at 1-800-686-2651. Our knowledgeable team can help you find the right product for any job – big or small.

Push, Pull, Crush: Car Dealerships Deal with Safety Issues

Let Our CarCaddy Help You Move Your Car so You Don’t Have To!

When you own a car dealership, it may seem as though you shouldn’t have any real concerns about safety. When your employees aren’t in the office, they’re probably working with customers on the floor, taking them on test drives, discussing service, etc.

Even so, here at DJ Products we believe there are safety concerns in every business, and the dealership is no exception. In some ways, because the risk of safety problems seems so low, we remind all business owners to remain diligent. An insurance company by the name of The Zenith recently came out with several forms that are available online for you to use in your dealership’s safety program.

Moving Cars Safely

At some point, your employees will have to move cars for one reason or another, and it may not always be feasible or even possible for them to get behind the wheel. In these instances, a dealer caddy (car pusher) is a perfect solution that was developed for car dealerships. It’s a great resource because it saves employees’ backs and keeps you from having to compensate them for potential injuries.

Moving Parts Safely

Don’t forget your employees in the warehouse and the service department. They often take delivery of large bulky items when your parts are received, and carrying those heavy pieces back and forth to the shelves can take a real toll on their bodies. Instead, a parts caddy can help them stay safe and do their jobs much more efficiently.

Whether you’re in need of a car pusher for car dealerships, or just about any related business, contact us at DJ Products to help.

Waste Caddy Purchases Increase Due to OSHA’s New Reporting Requirements

WasteCaddy Lite, Available from DJ Products

To many businesses, the new OSHA electronic record keeping rules sound like airing dirty laundry. The policies have been a subject of considerable controversy, but ultimately the message is clear: more than ever before, it’s time to step up efforts to prevent workplace injuries.

Leaders of business groups and labor have chimed in with reactions, rounded up by industrial news group EHS Today. Industry execs from ASSE and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce think that OSHA will be exposing confidential data and shifting the focus from preventive efforts. The AFL-CIO and COSH agree that the rules will protect workers and whistle blowers.

Reactions to New OSHA Electronic Record Keeping Rules

The tougher environment definitely has businesses placing greater emphasis on safety practices and ergonomic equipment.

Sales of automated tools like battery-powered waste caddys have risen as property managers and waste haulers seek to reduce the risk of severe injury incidents and long-term health problems.

Waste caddys and dumpster movers address a common cause of worker injury — the manual pushing of dumpsters that weigh thousands of pounds and take several workers to move. One worker can easily move any waste bin with an electric waste caddy.

With worker injury and illness data getting published to the public, businesses face intense scrutiny. Compliance is demanding. The data might dissuade job applicants from companies that appear to be dangerous. Some fear that the OSHA records could be used to justify lawsuits and claims more often.

Waste caddys are a smart investment to promote safety and reduce worker injuries, at any business where dumpsters must be moved. For more info, consider the WasteCaddy dumpster tow and other motorized equipment from DJProducts.com.

Dumpster Moving – Push or Pull, the Wrong Choice May Put You in the Hospital

Push or Pull done incorrectly may cause injury.

Many workers have a preference for either pushing or pulling heavy equipment, but the truth is manually pushing or pulling are both dangerous. The motion and exertion requirements can cause a repetitive stress injury while also risking losing control of the heavy equipment that’s in motion.

Danger of Pulling Heavy Equipment

Pulling a heavy load puts high stress on the body. Also, a moving dumpster can itself be dangerous. As one manager recently explained to MySafetyNews, the momentum might make the rolling equipment smash into the feet of the worker.

Injuries from pulling heavy equipment include:

• Back injuries from twisting and straining

• Neck and shoulder muscle strains and tears

• Hamstring and hip injuries

• Collisions and out-of-control carts endangering others

Danger of Pushing Heavy Equipment

Pushing a cart can be safer than pulling, but also has numerous injury risks:

• Wrist, elbow, and shoulder injuries

• Lower back injuries

• Carpal tunnel syndrome

• Cart blocks view of path, endangering other people and property

Avoid Workplace Injuries with Dumpster Tugs

The best solution for pushing or pulling a heavy cart like a waste dumpster? A motorized caddy that propels itself and stops on command. Dumpster tugs use a battery-powered motor to move thousands of pounds of weight with a simple steering control.

Dumpster tugs prevent many causes of worker injury:

• Eliminate physical strain of pushing and pulling

• Control the dumpster up and down inclines and across rocky surfaces

• Safely stop without sending a shock through the arms and back

• Maneuver around turns without straining the wrists and legs

Prevent the injury risks of manual pushing and pulling with motorized dumpster tugs from DJ Products.

Who Monitors Ergonomic Standards?

With talk that the Obama administration will implement federal ergonomic standards, the question arises: Who monitors ergonomic standards now?

There are a number of governmental and professional groups that write and/or monitor ergonomic standards or guidelines that affect U.S. manufacturers and businesses, most prominently:

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
International Organization for Standardization (ISO)

OSHA. Created by the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, OSHA’s mission is to provide U.S. workers with a safe working environment. The federal program is administered through the U.S. Department of Labor, but many states also have OSHA programs. OSHA develops specific workplace standards to protect workers’ health and safety and, through a network of inspectors, polices businesses to see that standards are enforced. OSHA also conducts procedural training and education courses.

NIOSH. Part of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, NIOSH was created by the same act as OSHA. NIOSH conducts research and makes recommendations regarding the prevention of work-related injuries and illnesses.

ANSI. A private non-profit general standards organization, ANSI facilitates the voluntary establishment of U.S. standards in many areas. ANSI does not create standards but serves as a neutral forum for the development of voluntary standards by consensus of industry/business groups. ANSI works to standardize the development, manufacture and supply of U.S. products and services.

ISO. The world’s largest developer and publisher of international standards, ISO is a non-governmental network of 159 countries. Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, ISO seeks international consensus on a wide range of product and service issues to facilitate trade.

In the U.S., some states — California and Washington — have their own ergonomics rules. Michigan may join their ranks soon if ongoing efforts to block a new state ergonomics rule fail. Industry trade organization may also champion ergonomic guidelines in their efforts to standardize industry practices.

Presently, ergonomics standards are piecemeal, applying to some industries or occupations but not all. Most often, standards are couched as voluntary guidelines with no penalty for non-compliance. At this time, the U.S. doesn’t have a pervasive, all-encompassing set of ergonomic laws that mandate and describe the use of ergonomics across the breadth of American business, nor is there a universal federal mechanism for requiring companies to implement ergonomic solutions and discipline those who fail to do so. Most U.S. industry watchers predict that this will eventually chance under the Obama administration.

Tag: industrial safety