Tag: logistics

Ergonomic Plan Can Help Attract and Retain Workers

This week we’ve been talking about the growing worker crisis that faces the material handling, manufacturing, warehousing, logistics and related industries (see our Nov. 3 post). By 2010, American industry will face a 50% shortfall in its material handling workforce. Attracting workers to material industry jobs is one of the biggest challenges of our industry (see our Nov. 5 post), particularly with worldwide growth in our industry expected to remain robust over the next several decades. Developing and instituting a comprehensive ergonomic plan in your company is an excellent way to attract new workers and retain your current workforce.

Ergonomics is the science of designing equipment and planning work tasks with the goal of eliminating workers’ risk of musculoskeletal injury. Equipment and tasks are designed around the capabilities of workers and seek to make it possible for workers to perform tasks with a minimum of physical strain and effort. A comprehensive ergonomic plan combines the use of ergonomically-designed equipment with ergonomically-planned task procedures to make it possible for workers to perform tasks more efficiently with a minimum of potential injury-causing motions.

Any time a worker has to bend, stretch, reach, push, pull or lift, he runs the risk of serious musculoskeletal injury. These injuries cost U.S. businesses more than $150 billion a year. More than 13 million American workers suffer non-fatal injuries each year, and 6,500 people die from workplace injuries. Workers’ compensation costs U.S. businesses $60 billion annually, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. More than 25% of those claims are for back injuries caused by repetitive lifting, pulling, pushing and straining. Back injuries alone affect more than 1.75 million workers a year, costing American businesses more than $12 million in lost workdays.

When you implement a comprehensive ergonomic plan, you send an immediate message to your employees that you respect their contribution to your business and value their health and safety. That, in turn, engenders worker appreciation and loyalty. The ability to offer a safe, ergonomic work environment is a powerful inducement in attracting and retaining your workforce.

DJ Products is an industry leader in the manufacture of ergonomically-designed electric and motorized cart pushers. Our equipment is less costly, smaller and more maneuverable than traditional equipment used to move carts and equipment. Ergonomically-designed equipment increases worker efficiency, thus improving production efficiency. In most situations where ergonomic equipment is introduced, businesses recoup purchase costs within the first year in medical, insurance, workers’ compensation and lost work-days savings alone. An investment in ergonomic equipment is a win-win situation for both businesses and their workers. DJ Products’ ergonomic specialists can help you assess your equipment needs and explore custom applications to benefit your business and your workers.

Education That Will Forward Your Material Handling Career

Material handling offers good growth potential now and for the future. It is also becoming increasingly automated and technical (see our Sept. 29 post). So how can students interested in material handling as a growth career and current workers who want to move up position themselves to be in demand by employers today and into the future?

Industry experts agree that education is the key. While a high school diploma can still get you an entry-level job on the warehouse floor, it will take certified skills to maintain that job as the level of technology accelerates through the material handling, warehousing and logistics industries. Moving up the corporate ladder will increasingly require a bachelor’s degree. If you aspire to a management position, plan on putting in that extra year or two to get your MBA. Some colleges now offer concurrent bachelor/MBA programs and many offer night, weekend and online courses. Executive MBA programs geared to working business professionals provide an accelerated path to a higher degree by recognizing acquired experiential knowledge.

“Going into the future, not many people will have much success in their career progression without professional development of some kind,” warned Mark Ensby, director of Clarkson University’s Engineering & Global Operations Management Department. “The three most important credentialing letters today seem to be ‘MBA.'”

As automation and the global economy drive industry to greater integration, versatility and cross-industry knowledge will be increasingly valued. Students who combine material handling courses with industrial engineering, logistics, supply chain, warehousing, project management and computer systems studies will best position themselves for the future.

Partnerships between industry associations and universities are also expected to increase experiential learning. As it moves toward the future, material handling and associated industrial engineering industries will be looking for graduates with experiential learning, not just theoretical knowledge. “Associations like MHIA are going to play more and more of an important role in leveraging universities as the provider of skilled employees,” predicted Dan Boos, president of consulting firm Gorillas and Gazelles.

Mark Tomlinson, executive director of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, has called for public schools to place greater emphasis on manufacturing as a viable career choice. Industry pressure is expected to increase two-year technical training opportunities in manufacturing, material handling, and industrial engineering fields. Tech schools, some beginning at the high school level, are seen as a quick way of solving the looming worker shortage in these industries. “The challenge is there just isn’t going to be enough of anybody for what’s needed,” Boos said.

“Over their lifetime, many of them (high school grads) will earn more because they started working sooner than those who took four or five years to finish college,” Tomlinson pointed out. “So we’ve got to get away from a good job/bad job mindset and encourage people to get some training.”

How to Increase Pick & Pack Efficiency

With costs up and profits down, everyone is scrambling to improve efficiency. No matter what business you’re in, you’re trying to do the job faster and better — often with fewer people. Warehouses, fulfillment houses and distribution centers are particularly challenged, says Bill Hubacek of FKI Logistex North America in a recent article in Manufacturing & Technology eJournal. “Customers demand nearly 100% order accuracy; smaller and more frequent orders cover a greater number of SKUs; and senior management calls for lower costs and increased productivity.”

High volumes from more frequent orders and quick order-to-ship turn-arounds can place a significant strain on your system and your workers. As Hubacek points out, “picking and packing functions remain two of the most labor-intensive and costly jobs in the operation. When performed manually, picking and packing can be a major source of errors, expense and decreased efficiency.”

And a reputation for errors is definitely something you want to avoid. Errors erode consumer confidence and create a negative drain on customer loyalty. When the economy is tight, competition becomes even more fierce than usual. A reputation for order accuracy can ensure a high rate of customer satisfaction and garner valued customer loyalty. Anything you do to improve your workers’ ability to perform accurately while picking, packing and shipping orders is essential.  

Hubacek makes a good argument for automating pick and pack operations, but most businesses are putting off that type of major retooling and restructuring effort until the economy improves. However, you don’t have to make a massive investment in automation to significantly improve productivity. Augmenting your workforce with a few ergonomically-designed powered carts or movers can improve the overall efficiency of your pick-pack-ship operation, increasing both speed and accuracy — and, ultimately, customer satisfaction.

DJ Products makes a full line of extremely versatile, highly maneuverable electric battery-powered movers designed to perform pushing, pulling and lifting tasks. Ergonomically designed to eliminate musculoskeletal injuries, DJ Products’ carts, tugs and movers take the physical burden of many pick-pack-ship tasks off your workers, allowing them to perform more efficiently. When not physically stressed, workers are able to perform tasks more quickly, concentrating on accuracy rather than the physical discomfort of the task. DJ Products’ powered movers allow you to add “mini-automation zones” to your warehousing, distribution or fulfillment process. And due to their versatility, DJ Products’ ergonomically-designed carts and movers can move with workers from one task to another or can be tasked to different key areas as needed.

Talk to one of our industry specialists to find out how DJ Products’ movers can improve your company’s efficiency — at a price you can afford.

SJF Material Handling Checks In

We were delighted to hear from one of our Minnesota brethren this week. Kent Powell of SJF Material Handling, Inc. in Winsted, Minnesota, just a couple of hours down the road from our home office in Little Falls, ran across our blog and dropped us a line.

SJF is a material handling equipment supplier and consultant. For more than 25 years, they’ve been providing new and used material handling equipment from their Minnesota base. Their Genesys division designs and engineers cutting-edge material handling and distribution systems. Services include customized consulting, layout/design, engineering and control programming services for warehousing and distribution-based industries.

You’ll find the SJF Material Handling Blog an interesting read and will want to add it to your list of “favorites.” Their blog focuses in large part on the steel market that provides the raw material for the conveyors, pallets, carousels, rack and other material handling products they sell. It provides readers with another level of insight into the issues that concern our industry today.

DJ Products manufactures ergonomic electric cart pullers and motorized cart pushers for the manufacturing, distribution, warehousing, logistics, automotive, healthcare, hospitality and retail industries. We specialize in ergonomic material handling solutions that eliminate the strain and resultant injury that occurs from manually pushing or pulling carts and wheeled equipment. We’re one interesting cog in the larger material handling wheel, as is SJF Material Handling. We know there are others out there and we want to hear from you.

We invite our readers and others who share our interest in material handling and its applicable industries to share your comments. Alert us to other interesting websites and blogs that we can share with our readers. Drop us a comment if you read an interesting blog post. Share your own experiences or concerns or let us know what you’d like to hear more about. Our goal in creating the DJ Products blog is to share news, information and insights about material handling. We’d love to hear from you. Drop us a line.

Recession Leads to Survival of the Fittest

It’s Darwin’s principle of natural selection in action. In a poor economy, only the strong survive. A recession “always hits manufacturing first and hardest,” Hank Cox of the National Association of Manufacturers recently told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. According to the Associated Press, in December, “manufacturing activity sank to its lowest point in 28 years,” with indexes falling farther than expected. Some index components, including new orders, fell to historic lows not seen since the 1948-49 recession. Overall, the manufacturing index, which has been steadily declining over the past six months, reached its lowest reading since June 1980, the tail-end of the last major recession.

Major players from Dow Chemical to Ford Motor Co. to Anheuser Busch are chopping jobs and shutting down factories in an attempt to stop the financial hemorrhaging, but it may not be enough. With the global economy in a tailspin, manufacturers can’t rely on exports to save them from disaster. And when the big guys are flailing, you can bet small businesses are being hammered. From manufacturing to retail and everywhere in between, the economy is taking a toll on American businesses. No sector of the economy is proving to be recession proof. No one reported growth in December and most sectors of the economy reported declines in everything from new orders to production, employment and prices. Weak companies are going to fail. It’s survival of the fittest, but those companies that do survive the recession are predicted to emerge far stronger than before and in an arena with less competition. To make the cut, you’ll need to roll with the punches and be proactive about the changes that are coming.

The floundering economy and growing jobs crisis has given the incoming Obama administration a popular mandate to change America (see our previous two posts). Industry experts tell us to expect increased government oversight and regulation. Public backlash from the highhanded attitude of financial institutions that refused to disclose how they spent bailout money has assured that future government help will come with lots of strings attached. Add to that President-elect Obama’s campaign pledge to American workers to improve workplace safety and his pledge to the public to increase environmental protection, and American businesses should be girding for a new era of more invasive government regulation.

There are always two ways to handle change. You can rail and fight against it, or you can embrace it and use it to position yourself ahead of the competition. Time and again, history proves that those who look to the future and embrace change survive. As competition increases, the companies that are proactive about incorporating new technology, new equipment and new processes into their operations are the ones that will rise above their competition and live to see a better tomorrow.

Next time: How DJ Products can help you be a survivor.

U.S. Manufacturers Turn to ‘Insourcing’ to Save Money

Insourcing is the new buzzword in U.S. manufacturing circles. U.S. economic woes are causing many manufacturers to replace outsourcing with insourcing, an unexpected boon for American workers. The declining value of the dollar against foreign currencies, skyrocketing transportation costs caused by high fuel prices, and decreasing export demand resulting from the global economic downturn are making it more cost efficient for U.S. manufacturers to produce their products at home.

The same economic forces that sent U.S. jobs overseas are now bringing them home. Manufacturing costs in Alabama are currently running 3% below those in China, causing companies like Exxel Outdoors, Inc., which makes sleeping bags for Wal-Mart and other customers, to execute an “about face” on its production priorities. Since the Wall Street tumble, the company has hired more workers, added new equipment and beefed-up production at its Haleyville, Alabama plant, while cutting production at a joint venture in Shanghai. In 2007, 60% of Exxel’s bags were made in Shanghai. This year, the company will make more product at home than abroad and expects to produce 90% of their product at their Alabama facility by 2010.

Exxel founder and CEO Harry Kazazian is predicting a 20% increase in company revenue this year to $42 million. He credits insourcing as a major factor in his company’s success during a tight economy. Since 2005, he has seen the yuan appreciate 17% against the dollar, pushing up Chinese wages, material costs and freight costs. Kazazian says moving production from Shanghai back to Exxel’s Alabama plant just made financial sense.

“Labor is China’s advantage and our weakest link,” he said. “But they can’t compete with me on my just-in-time” production cycle. Exxel can deliver a sleeping bag from its Alabama facility within three days where shipping from China can take two months.

According to government statistics, U.S. manufacturing is contracting at the fastest rate since 2001, the last time America dipped into a recession. As countries around the globe struggle with the growing financial crisis, there has been a marked decrease in export demand. Without demand for the prodigious output that originally spurred outsourcing over the last decade, producing goods in the U.S. is becoming increasingly cost efficient. Smart companies are re-evaluating their outsourcing policies and making the switch to insourcing.

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.

Plenty of Jobs Available in Material Handling Fields

With the economy down and unemployment up, jobs are a hot topic this election. As industry starts to feel the economic pinch, plants are closing, workers are being laid off and some companies are facing bankruptcy. But there are jobs aplenty in the material handling industry and the associated industries of logistics, fulfillment and warehousing.

There’s a severe shortage of qualified industrial workers in America, particularly in material handling fields, that holds promise for job-seekers. The material handling industry is expected to be “50% short in terms of employees needed by 2010,” said Virginia Wheeler, executive director of the Material Handling Industry of America’s (MHIA) Education Foundation. The growing worker shortfall guarantees job security well into the next decade for people going into material handling jobs in warehouses, fulfillment centers, logistics operations, and factories.

“Our industry is begging for people,” said Dan Quinn, MHIA VP for education. He feels America’s high schools are undercutting the value of the trade jobs that built and continue to build America. “A lot of schools measure themselves on the percentage of students who go on to college,” Quinn criticized. “Schools should embrace the concept that non-college-bound students are still valuable contributors to the economy and society.”

The reality is that many high school students are not interested in pursuing a college education for a wide variety of reasons. Many simply prefer hands-on, physical work to sitting at a desk. Many are anxious to get out on their own and lack the interest in four more years of schooling. Many do not have the financial resources to consider college but must provide for themselves immediately after high school graduation. As the recession deepens, finances are expected to play an increasing role in education/work decisions. Some high school juniors and seniors, like Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s future son-in-law, have already been forced to drop out of school to help support their families. Some employers are offering their employees the opportunity to complete their high school education through GED programs.

It’s unfortunate that many high school guidance counselors are so focused on college that they ignore the positive opportunities available in material handling industries. Raising awareness of job opportunities is one of the primary challenges facing the material handling industry, said Alan Howie, author of Fundamentals of Warehousing and Distribution. “. . . the essential problem is we have to get the message out there that . . . work in the material handling industry is much more than a manual labor job. It’s a career in a high-tech industry. Our challenge is to build awareness of all of this in the schools and colleges.”

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.

Tips for Ramping Up Warehouse Efficiency

The economy is forcing everyone to tighten up operations. Efficiency is today’s business byword. In a timely article posted on Supply Demand Chain, TriFactor systems engineer Greg Tuohy offered provocative tips to ramp up warehouse efficiency by improving material handling processes in distribution centers.

  1. Know where you’re at. Before you can decide where to make improvements, you have to know where you are, says Tuohy. Review operational data and break it down so you can see where your money goes and relationships between processes. Start with the big picture, but break it down to figure the cost of each element in the process. This will show you where you’re getting the best value for your dollar and where you need to tighten up your operation.
  2. Define customer service. Tuohy recommends defining your commitment to customers as narrowly as possible to allow more accurate measurement of success or failure. Defining what constitutes achievement of a perfect order, including labeling, delivery time, damage and documentation, also defines employee goals and customer expectations. Aim for realistic and achievable results that will give you a competitive edge.
  3. Touch it once. Each time an item is touched invites human error. Track the number of times an item is touched from the time the order is received until it ships out of your facility. Work to eliminate as many steps in the process as possible.
  4. Look up. When you need to expand operations, expand upward into unused overhead space instead of laterally. Elevating operations makes more efficient use of available space, allowing you to extend the useful life of your facility.
  5. Map SKUs. Gather data on SKUs in inventory, says Tuohy. Carefully map each SKU for shape, weight and velocity of use. Knowing how fast items move from demand to use allows you to slot your facility for maximum efficiency. “The data also allow you to take advantage of the cubing features of most warehouse management systems in order to calculate the appropriate-sized carton to use for a respective order,” says Tuohy, thus reducing carton and packing filler expenses.

Next time: More ways to ramp up warehouse efficiency