material handling equipment Archives - Page 2 of 12

Tips on Managing Your Warehouse Work Force

Managing Your Warehouse Workforce

Managing material handling equipment involves not much more than following an established maintenance schedule. When it comes to managing your warehouse work force and operations, a wide range of variables comes into play.

Use these tips to keep your work force and operations running smoothly and efficiently.

Managing Employees

– Keep lines of communication open in both directions. Encourage employees to share questions or concerns freely so they can be addressed immediately, before they become more serious problems.

– Establish an effective training program for new hires. Both productivity and worker retention benefit when employees are confident in their job. Implement ongoing training and cross-training as needed.

– Conduct performance reviews on a regular basis. Reward outstanding performance and give employees a chance to improve their weaknesses.

– Success and failure are contagious. Don’t allow negative attitudes to get a foothold in the workplace. Let an employee go if he or she consistently demonstrates negative behavior.

Managing Operations

– Prioritize safety in your company’s culture. Keep all areas clean, organized and well-lit. Enforce safety regulations and post them in visible places throughout the warehouse.

– Order-picking is the most labor-intensive job in many warehouses. Review the process and solicit input from employees about making it more efficient.

– Meet with key staff members on a weekly or monthly basis to discuss new ideas, questions and problems.

– Successful companies embrace change. Don’t be afraid to implement new processes or material handling equipment when and where improvement is needed.

Material Handling Equipment for Today’s Warehouses

Are your employees still struggling to move heavy loads? Improve productivity and reduce workplace injuries with battery-powered tugs, movers and pushers from DJ Products. Get assistance from our friendly sales engineers with the convenient chat feature on our website.

Beyond the Distribution Center: Tips to Prevent Shipment Damage

How much loss can you absorb from shipping damage? Getting to zero might be an impossible task, but it’s worth making every effort to reduce the risks. Air bags and strong tape help, but everyone along the supply chain needs the right warehouse equipment and plenty of knowledge for how to prevent product loss.

Reduce Freight Claims, Boost Profit

By using powered warehouse carts from DJ Products, your staff can better manage inventory and load shipments onto trucks and trailers. From a motorized cart pusher to more specialized warehouse equipment like the PartsCaddy or CarpetCaddy, there’s a tool for every job.

Logistics experts recommend taking even more action to prevent shipment damage:

– Test shipment methods before rolling out a new product

– Cube stacks of boxes to prevent damage during transit

– Train workers on proper use of box-cutters

– Apply shock and tilt indicators to fragile packages

– Make customer return supplies easy to use

Focus on What You Can Control

Whichever leg of the supply chain your company handles, there are many factors out of your control. From the factory to the last-mile delivery service, many hands touch each package. To prevent damage from shipping, focus on your own warehouse equipment and identify the places and situations that can cause damage.

Crushed box corners and shattered products are signs that employees might be overwhelmed at the warehouse. Does your team have the right material handling equipment for the weight, size, and volume of packages they handle?

DJ Products offers powered cart pushers and tugs for loads ranging from 1,500 pounds to 50,000 pounds. For every application, we have warehouse equipment that can save time, prevent worker injury, and make it easier to deliver the goods intact. Contact us for more info.

Lidar Technology Being Used to Improve the Safety of Warehouse Robots

New Technology Arrives in Warehouses

Robots are the ultimate material handling equipment, but their application in the warehouse environment is still limited. While robotic workers are being developed to handle increasingly sophisticated tasks, they lack the ability to sense and react to their surroundings.

This obstacle may be overcome soon, thanks to a Massachusetts tech company. A system known as lidar could be the solution for safer warehouse robots.

Solving the Problem of Robotic Safety

Lidar is a high-tech method used to detect nearby objects, much like radar, but it uses laser light rather than radio waves. While lidar has a a number of applications, it’s gained attention recently as a navigational system for self-driving vehicles.

Massachusetts-based Veo Robotics came up with the idea to use a similar system with industrial robots. Veo’s proprietary lidar program generates real-time 3D maps of warehouses and factory workspaces. The data is used to stop robots if humans are approaching or the robots can’t sense what’s going on around them.

Lidar Hits the Industrial Market

In late 2017, Veo raised $12 million in capital from venture investment firms to finance their project. Kuka is one of several robotics companies allowing Veo to test their technology on their machines.

The completed system is expected to begin shipping to customers this year. At $40,000, the system is roughly one-tenth of the cost of industrial robots and requires less than a day for installation.

Veo co-founder Patrick Sobalvarro projects $1 billion in annual revenue within five years. Sobalvarro hails Veo’s system as the “end of fear” around bulky but fast-moving industrial robots.

Let Material Handling Equipment from DJ Products Do the Heavy Lifting

Our material handling equipment improves workplace safety in any warehouse. Contact us for more information.

Beyond the Distribution Center: Tips for Going Green

In All We Do on This Planet, Thinking Green Can Only Help.

As a key cog in the machine for retail and industry, distribution centers can make an enormous impact by going green. Yet it’s hard to justify investing in something for the environment if it doesn’t improve your own bottom line. So let’s talk about how going green with smart warehouse equipment and energy-saving choices can help the planet, your employees, and your business.

The Basics: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Businesses can reduce their footprint by going digital to use less paper and implementing recycling bins for bottles and glass. Warehouses can go green even more by reusing and recycling pallets, cardboard boxes, packing materials, and more.

Try charting your progress to boost employee morale, and make it known to customers that you’ve gone green so they can feel good about doing business with you.

Less Carbon, More Comfort

Any steps to improve heating and cooling efficiency can also make the warehouse more comfortable for hardworking staff. Try these:

– Add insulation

– Install industrial fans

– Insulate ductwork

– Paint the roof white

– Switch to cooler LED lighting

Better ventilation, cleaner air, and a healthier work environment make your employees more productive. That’s good for retention, reducing sick days, and thus being more profitable. Lower utility bills help, too!

Electric Warehouse Equipment

Smart warehouses use less energy because they’re more efficient. If you’re using a diesel forklift, an industrial cart mover can potentially replace it. If you send out less-than-full truckloads, smarter logistics can fill the truck and get more out of every gallon of fuel.

DJ Products makes ergonomic, battery-powered warehouse equipment for today’s needs. While helping you go green, our CartCaddy and other material handling equipment will also help make your warehouse a healthier, more injury-free zone. Contact us for more info.

Hybrid AI Models May Be Best for Supply Chain Planning

As technology continues to impact warehouse equipment and other facets of supply chain, artificial intelligence (AI) is seen as the next wave of the future. AI is being used to pilot industrial vehicles and make predictions based on data gathered from containers and machinery.

Some predict the eventual arrival of a fully autonomous supply chain, but is that actually possible or even desirable? Experts say a hybrid AI model is the best solution for optimum efficiency and productivity.

The Role of AI in Supply Chain Operations

While the popular concept of AI is tied to machine learning, supply chains have already been using AI in applications such as operations research and fuzzy logic. The common denominator is that all involve gathering and processing historical data.

Where AI comes up short is decision-making. Based on the quantity and high level of data amassed, AI can make accurate predictions related to customer demand and other variables. But making a final decision requires context, something only humans can provide.

Combining AI and Human Intelligence

Analytics fall into four broad categories with increasing degrees of difficulty and importance:

– Descriptive (What happened?) and Diagnostic (Why did it happened?) are where historic data comes into play.

– Predictive (What can happen?) and Prescriptive (What should we do?) involve processing available data to determine how best to move forward.

AI is invaluable in the first three steps. When it comes to decision-making, a human can take data and apply external factors, such as weather or season, to determine the optimum course of action.

Cutting-Edge Warehouse Equipment for Today’s Supply Chain Operations

Make sure you have the right warehouse equipment to implement more productive processes. Contact DJ Products for information about our selection of electric tugs, movers and pushers.

Learn How to Reduce Warehouse Inventory Damage with an Eye on Boosting Profits

Watch Out Above You for any Potential Hazards – Like Falling Wooden Pallets.

Quality material handling equipment improves productivity, but those gains can be offset by inventory loss, eating away at profits. Between damages, poor inventory control and theft, losses that seem insignificant on a daily basis can add up to considerable amounts.

While some loss is unavoidable, you can take steps to limit inventory shrinkage. Incorporate these tips in warehouse day-to-day operations to reduce inventory loss and protect profits.

Reduce Risk of Damages

Inventory damage occurs primarily due to packaging or handling. Review incidents of damage over time to see if you can discover a pattern.

– Make sure packaging materials are sturdy enough to accommodate products and stand up to specific warehouse conditions, such as extreme heat or cold.

– Limit the amount of headspace in packages to prevent boxes becoming crushed, especially when they’re stacked on a shelf or pallet.

– Train employees in proper loading techniques.

Improve Inventory Control

High-tech warehouse management systems (WMS) allow for greater precision when tracking inventory. Traditional methods such as inventory auditing and cycle counting programs also minimize the risk of lost products.

Increase Security Measures

No one wants to think about in-house theft, but it’s an unfortunate fact of life. Strategically placed video cameras can serve as deterrents while providing a means of investigating instances of pilferage. If your warehouse stocks products with a high value on secondary markets, consider instituting a consistent and fair inspection program in which all bags are searched.

Upgrade Warehouse Safety with Material Handling Equipment from DJ Products

Are workers struggling with heavy loads? Our battery-powered material handling equipment reduces risk of both inventory damage and workplace injury. Visit our website and let our knowledgeable sales engineers help you find the perfect tug, pusher or mover for your application.

DoD Contractors and the New Cyber Mandate Impacts DoD Contractor Administrations

If your contract with the Department of Defense (DoD) involves processing or holding information that is considered controlled unclassified information, it’s important to become familiar with the new DoD cyber mandate. In addition to using a GSA listed supplier, you should also keep the following information on this new mandate in mind.

Restrict Access to Authorized Users Only

Only authorized individuals who are able to present the right credentials should be allowed access to sensitive information. This helps reduce the risk of unauthorized access that could compromise this information.

Maintain Security Awareness

Administrators, managers and others who are involved in these contracts must be aware of security risks and track access to protected data. This makes it easier to detect any unusual activity that could be considered a security risk.

Prepare for Audit Reviews and Practice Accountability

Contractors who need to stay compliant with the DoD cyber mandate should be prepared to create and maintain audit records that can be monitored and investigated as needed.

Configure the Information System

Information systems should be configured so that they provide only as much functionality as needed for different users. This helps prevent unauthorized access that allows screen sharing or screen scrapping.

Identify and Authenticate Users

Information system users must be properly identified and authenticated to help keep protected content safe from unauthorized access. Those who need to do this should use a platform that offers authentication in order to remain in compliance with the mandate.

DJ Products is a GSA listed supplier for DoD contractors. If you are among these contractors and need a GSA-approved supplier, please browse our selection of products. Our products help you save time and manpower hours, along with reducing the risk of staff injuries.

OSHA Weighs in On Forklift Safety Awareness

Forklifts are standard material handling equipment in most warehouses. While forklifts allow greater productivity, they can also increase risk of injury and damage if workers don’t follow safe operating procedures.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) promotes education and training to raise awareness of workplace safety. Here are OSHA’s top tips for operating forklifts safely and efficiently.

Mounting and Dismounting

– Make sure hands are clean and dry to prevent slipping off handholds.

– Don’t use the steering wheel to pull yourself up.

– Check the soles of shoes for grease that may cause your footing to slip.

– Climb in and out carefully and avoid jumping.

Starting and Stopping

– Conduct a visual and operational inspection of the forklift before each use.

– Check the travel path for obstructions.

– Watch out for blind spots and use the horn as needed.

– Don’t park in a spot that blocks the aisle or doorways.

– Always engage the parking brake.

Driving, Steering and Turning

– Drive at a speed that allows for safe stopping.

– Always look in the direction of travel.

– Reduce speed when turning and come to a complete stop before changing directions.

– Make sure forks are lowered before turning or reversing.

– Give pedestrians generous clearance.

– When traveling on an incline, always keep the load upgrade.

Forklift Operators

– Keep arms and legs inside the forklift at all times.

– Never carry passengers on the lift itself.

– Don’t engage in stunt driving or tricks.

– In case of a tipover, hold tight to the steering wheel, brace your feet and lean away from the impact.

Put Safety First with Material Handling Equipment from DJ Products

Minimize costly workplace injuries and damages with our ergonomically-designed tugs, movers and pushers. Visit our website to learn more about our efficient and cost-effective material handling equipment.

The Internet of Things is Transforming Warehouses

Technology is Changing Warehouses

How can your warehouse keep up with the challenges of today’s increasingly competitive industry? Use labor-saving solutions from a material handling equipment supplier and integrate Internet of Things (IoT) technology for state-of-the-art warehouse management.

IoT Applications for Warehouses and Distribution Centers

Business technology has gone far beyond consumer applications. The IoT provides efficient and accurate ways to manage even the most complex warehouses through every step of operations.

– Products can be located at each point in the supply chain through unique ID numbers.

– Real-time data collection allows for speedier and more effective decision making.

– Data sharing across platforms and between departments is simplified.

– Detailed information can be attached to all incoming and outgoing transactions without the need for human interaction.

– Patterns can be identified and used to improve speed, accuracy and efficiency.

– Reporting, alerts and notifications are available through a number of devices.

Continuing Benefits of IoT-Equipped Warehouses

Currently, 10 percent of companies have implemented IoT systems, while another 30 percent are planning to adopt the technology. Over the next 10 years, the IoT industry is predicted to reach a global value of $8 trillion.

Companies are increasingly viewing warehouses as value streams rather than merely inventory storage. IoT systems can help create leaner systems by reducing wasted time, labor and supplies. As a result, both vendors and customers will have higher levels of confidence and satisfaction.

DJ Products: Your Complete Material Handling Equipment Supplier

Overexertion due to lifting, pulling, pushing and carrying is the number one cause of workplace injuries. We offer a comprehensive line of battery-powered pushers, tugs and movers to fit any material handling application.

Visit our website and use the convenient online chat feature for immediate assistance from our friendly and knowledgeable sales engineers.

Warehouse Workers Adapt to New Roles as Robots Move In

Robots Are Changing Warehouse Staffing and Management Techniques

Amazon is unquestionably an industry leader. The e-commerce company surpassed Walmart as the biggest retailer by market value years ago. According to Fortune, Amazon is worth more than Costco, Target, and Walmart combined. Companies like Walmart are scrambling to maintain revenue by increasing their focus on e-commerce. Currently, nobody does e-commerce better than Amazon. And the company Jeff Bezos founded in 1994 is fully embracing warehouse equipment and robots to stay ahead of others.

New challenges for employees

In the not so distant past, monotonous, repetitive jobs were done by humans for low pay. Thanks to advancements in technology, robots are now capable of doing more intricate tasks. While it’s true that many jobs that were traditionally completed by human hands are now being done by robots, Amazon’s staggering growth has created an abundance of other jobs that need to be filled by human workers. These jobs are mentally challenging and not repetitive, says 21-year-old Nissa Scott, who began working at one of Amazon’s New Jersey warehouses last year. She is responsible for monitoring and troubleshooting several robots.

Warehouse equipment benefits employees and companies

Warehouse management has a lot of things happening all at once and countless repeatable processes. Reliable, efficient equipment along with a proper focus on ergonomics and employee training helps to maintain profitability for a company by preventing back strains, reducing slip and fall injuries, and lowering the company’s costs associated with workplace injuries. The average cost to an employer due to a common trash room injury is more than $41,000.

Contact DJ Products to speak with one of our knowledgeable sales engineers about which of our material handling equipment products are best for your company’s needs.

Tag: material handling equipment