Tag: Material Handling

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

Keeping Up with the Trends

The world of business, and subsequently warehousing and material handling, is ever changing.  To be successful you must adapt as your customer needs change and there is never a more serious time to serve your customer as a time where the economy is suffering.  If you can’t provide the service that your customer needs, you better believe that he or she will find someone that can in an effort to serve their customer and keep their doors open.

Recent trends have shown that some businesses are being forced by the economy to move into smaller properties in an effort to cut overhead and continue operating.  Some of these businesses will require their suppliers to change from a customary “pick and pack” type supplier to someone who is willing to store materials until they are needed.

Warehouses and distribution centers who are asked to provide this service to their customers need, more than ever before, to be properly organized and capable of staging and shipping orders quickly and accurately once an order is received from their customer.  Direct shipments to end users may be necessary and the overall volume of shipments may increase causing the environment to become faster paced and more hectic.

The need for accurate and properly stocked inventories becomes crucial in this type of environment; because there is no time for error when direct or expedited shipments are required.  One way to ensure that your workers can both accurately receive and store materials and to ensure that material can be pulled and staged for priority shipments quickly is to have the proper material handling equipment available for use.

The ergonomic, battery powered carts and scissor lifts from DJ products operate quickly, cleanly and quietly for an entire shift on a single charge, allowing your employees to focus on the accuracy necessary for pulling and receiving orders rather than on the back breaking labor of manual material handling.  In order to become and stay successful your team needs to be fast, accurate and efficient and one of the best ways to achieve that level of performance is to operate with the best possible equipment.

Preventing Catastrophe

More than five thousand workers are killed on the job every year; weekly reports can be viewed on OSHA’s website detailing the individual events that caused the fatalities.  This is a very scary number, but what’s scarier than the sheer number of deaths that occurred is that many of them probably could have been prevented.

For the week ending May first (the latest week with an available report), there were nearly twenty fatalities.  One of the accidents involved an employee of a major national retailer who climbed onto a storage rack and fell while attempting to get back onto a ladder.  There are other instances on the weekly report that point to poor judgment on the part of the employee and many that occurred as a result of faulty or malfunctioning equipment.  These reports show that the proper employee training and education and the presence of properly functioning equipment that is specifically designed to handle the type of work being performed can most certainly prevent injuries and very likely save lives.

Warehouse and material handling equipment needs to be more than just fast, it needs to be reliable and safe in order to provide the best possible work environment.   The best material handling equipment is quiet, reliable and easy to use because equipment failure and overly complex controls can increase the chances for accidents and injuries.

Employees need to be properly trained on how to use each piece of material handling equipment that they will encounter while performing their job duties and they need to be well aware of all general safety procedures and practices for the workplace.

There will always be injuries in a line of work that requires plenty of physical labor and the transport of heavy materials, but with the proper education and the safest and most reliable equipment, those injuries can be kept to a minimum.

Material Handling Product Sales Are Booming – All The Way to 2018

The proper material handling equipment helps companies operate more efficiently and protects employees from accidents and back injuries. It reduces the damage that can occur to materials during movement and storage. Increased competitiveness in all industries requires every business to look for ways to maximize their available space, improve customer service, and lower indirect labor cost. Research by the Freedonia Group shows more industries are implementing advanced automation equipment and investing in material handling equipment to ensure their continued success.

Mike Deneen is a senior industry analyst for the Freedonia Group. Deneen says much of the strong gains for material handling equipment will be in the area of large-scale factory automation and automated guided vehicles (AGVs) that contribute to automated warehouse environments. He expects U.S. demand for AGVs and robotics to increase by about 6 percent, with durable goods manufacturers accounting for half of the material handling equipment demand through 2018.

In addition to manufacturers and global distribution companies seeking to reduce labor cost, more small service and trade companies are also recognizing the benefits of energy efficient products like car pushers and electric lift trucks. These easy-to-use pieces of equipment can move cars and trucks of up to 20,000 pounds on a flat surface, increasing productivity for mechanic shops and car dealers, while protecting employees from injury and keeping vehicles damage-free. With a low-maintenance design and simple 36 volt, 3 battery system, these car pushers have little maintenance cost.

DJ Products has a full line of energy efficient caddies and tugs for any size business. Contact our knowledgeable Sales Engineers at 800.686.2651 to discuss which solution best fits your individual material handling needs.

Battery Powered Carts Reduce the risk of injury

Operating a forklift or battery powered cart without following the necessary safety guidelines is a huge risk that can result in serious injuries or even death, but not all material handling injuries stem from improper use on the part of the operator.  If you allow any employee to operate material handling equipment that you know isn’t functioning properly, you are putting every employee in your business at serious risk.The older a piece of equipment is, the more likely it is to malfunction or breakdown, which can cause delays in the completion of work and potentially lead to injuries.  Forklifts and powered carts require regularly scheduled preventative maintenance, but if there is ever a question of proper operation it needs to be tended to immediately to ensure your employees’ safety.Distribution of materials is often a fast paced environment with many activities going on at the same time.  There may be dozens of employees scurrying around the warehouse filling orders and receiving shipments while a number of machines are working to load and unload trucks or put away stock – if even one of these pieces of equipment malfunctions it could lead to several serious injuries.In order to keep your fast paced environment as safe and productive as possible, you need to have the safest and most reliable equipment.  Battery powered carts and lifts from DJ Products are engineered to be quieter, safer, more reliable and cheaper to operate than traditional forklifts and lift trucks.  Each piece of DJ Products equipment is ergonomically designed to prevent many of the nagging injuries often associated with manually material handling and easy enough to use so a single employee can tackle heavy jobs quickly and safely.Truly efficient warehouse and distribution environments don’t rely on equipment that may or may not get them through a shift.  In order to be as safe and successful as possible your equipment needs to be the safest around and completely reliable day in and day out – and that’s exactly what DJ Products strives for with every piece of equipment sold, including our battery powered carts.

Supply Chain Digest Announces Fall Workshops

Supply Chain Digest is pulling out a heavy-hitter to headline its annual fall workshop on improving distribution center and warehouse management and performance. Ken Miesemer, Senior Consultant at St. Onge and former Director of Distribution and International Logistics for Hershey Foods, will lead two fall workshops being sponsored by the industry magazine. “Best Practices in Distribution Center Design, Operations and Management” will be presented in Philadelphia on October 21-22 and in Atlanta on October 28-29.

Author of the book Start-Up of a World Class DC, Miesemer said, “These workshops use outstanding materials that have been extremely well received by logistic professionals, and deliver concepts and insight that aren’t just theory but which have been proven in real-world distribution environments.”

Billed as “hands-on, practical training sessions,” Supply Chain Digest’s popular Professional Education Series workshops encourage interaction between instructors and distribution, warehousing and logistics professionals. In addition to Miesemer, Supply Chain Digest editor Dan Gilmore will review supply chain execution software systems. Course materials include distribution analysis and decision-making tools and templates that attendees will be able to implement in their own operations. The discussion and provision of practical action plans is a hallmark of Supply Chain Digest workshops.

The workshops will focus on the implementation of best practices to improve labor productivity, operations efficiency and inventory accuracy using proven techniques and technology. Course highlights include: building and material handling equipment design, testing design through automation, organizing to minimize bottlenecks, workforce performance management, fostering a culture of continuous development and improvement, differentiating solutions, redefining bid specifications, controlling risk driven margin expectations, and much more.

“Best Practices in Distribution Center Design, Operations and Management” workshop details:

  • October 21-22 at Penn State Great Valley Conference Center in Malvern, PA just outside of Philadelphia 
  • October 28-29 at Georgia Tech Conference Center in Atlanta, GA

Click here for a complete course outline and hotel and registration information.

Surviving and Thriving during Mergers and Acquisitions

Having to cutback, downsize or merge with a competitor has become the reality for many logistics and storage companies if the want to keep their doors open.  There just currently aren’t enough customers and enough money/product moving around in order to keep every company busy enough to justify, or even allow, them to operate at the level that they had prior to the economic downturn.

Mergers with competitors can pose a whole host of issues in terms of operations; the most obvious would seem to be the personal and computer program interactions.  Adopting a brand new and potentially very different system of daily operations and having to interact with a bunch of new personalities can be a daunting task, but few people view just how much difference their can be in the warehousing and storage aspect and it’s profound affect on the employees involved.

Differences in equipment, inventory control and shipping and receiving practices can be difficult obstacles to overcome.  In order for a newly developed company with employees from two different backgrounds to be successful, some operational changes may be a necessity.  Customers coming from both businesses will need to see accuracy and speed at least comparable, if not improved, to what they were used to in order to feel confident with the new situation.

Increasing speed and accuracy may require upgrade changes in equipment as well as operations.  Outdated, inefficient and unreliable machines could spell doom to a company who is attempting to keep current customers from leaving during a period of transition.  The proper material handling equipment will more than pay for itself in a very short period of time with reduced fuel/energy costs and increased employee productivity; and the capability of delivering goods quickly and accurately will keep customers loyal and could possibly increase your bottom line.

DJ products offers affordable, reliable and easy to use solutions for material handling, the exact type of equipment needed for a warehouse to maintain, or exceed customer expectations during the transition period of a merger.

Eliminating Overhead the Smart Way

The economy is still lagging far behind what it was a few years ago and though some industries are beginning to see some promise, logistics and third party warehouses are still struggling to stay out of the red.  In order to keep the doors open, many businesses are being forced to find a way to cut overhead because the customers just don’t have money to spend.

Many businesses are moving to smaller facilities, cutting down the inventory they stock and even cutting employees just to lower spending enough to remain profitable.  If you slash inventory, move to a smaller facility or cut employees you could be hurting your company’s ability to provide adequate service, but there is a way that you can spend less money while at the same time improving your ability to serve the customer.

Propane powered equipment may seem like the most convenient and efficient way to move material, but when you calculate the cost of fuel and tally up the frequent maintenance and repair costs you’ll see that quite a bit of your budget is being spent on this equipment that is supposed to be saving your company money.  A much more economic way to move material is with battery operated carts and lifts.

The lifts and carts offered by DJ Products are quiet, efficient and incredibly reliable and the cost of operation is far less than that of a propane powered forklift.  A single employee can easily maneuver around tight spaces with heavy loads of inventory and not ever have to worry about wasting time changing an empty fuel tank – the lifts and carts from DJ can last an entire shift on a single charge.

You don’t need to sacrifice the quality of your service, your capacity to store product or your number of employees to get back into the green – you may be to be able to cut costs and provide better service by running your operation with the right equipment.

5 Tips to Improve Your Warehouse Team in 2015

When attempting to improve efficiency in your  warehouse, there are a lot of moving parts that require attention. You must manage the movement of incoming goods from suppliers, maintain accurate inventory, coordinate deliveries to suit your customer’s needs, and protect the safety of your personnel the entire time.

The new year is a good time to implement changes that will boost performance in all areas.

  • Ask your team for ideas. You probably have more experience and knowledge than anyone in the warehouse, but they are on the front lines everyday. While looking at the big picture, it is possible to miss seeing some crucial details that need attention.
  • Schedule frequent training classes. Humans are creatures of habit. It is easy to develop bad habits that go unnoticed. Formal training classes will keep everyone following proper protocol.
  • Use automation to lower injuries and cost. Motorized carts, tugger carts, and electric tugs will prevent injuries and decrease fatigue. Your staff will be more alert and productive throughout the day.
  • Offer advancement opportunities. Everyone wants to take pride in what they do. When team members have individual goals, it is easier to accomplish the goals you have for the whole team.
  • Cross train personnel. By understanding the different jobs and functions of the warehouse, team members are more inclined to work together.

Regardless of your industry or the size of your warehouse, DJ Products has the material moving carts, cart movers, or other tuggers that will help you operate safer and more efficiently in 2015 and for many years ahead. Call 800.686.2651 to speak with one of our courteous and knowledgeable Sales Engineers.

Material Handling and Distribution Heats Up in the Summer – Literally

Warehouses are generally poorly ventilated buildings with no good source of circulation, many with metal roofs that absorb the heat of the sun, and certainly no provisions for air conditioning.  So as the temperatures of the Summer rises, so does the temperature of the workplace.

Open dock and receiving doors let in the Summer heat and the fast pace of the employees and the bustle of the machinery just forces the temperatures even higher throughout the course of the day.  In this type of environment it’s critical to have safe and reliable material handling equipment, because the extreme heat will only add to the dangers of manual material handling.

Having the proper equipment to assist in the transport of heavy loads gives your employees the opportunity to complete their work according to (or even ahead of) schedule without having to over exert themselves inside of the scorching warehouse environment.  Old, outdated propane forklifts can throw hot exhaust, which can also work to drive up the temperature in an already borderline dangerous environment making a very uncomfortable workplace practically unbearable.

Just because the temperature has risen outside, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to slow down your operation or that you have to compromise your employees’ safety.  Reliable, battery operated carts and lifts help to ensure that your employees will have the assistance they need with heavy materials, minimizing the risks involved with manual material handling.  Battery operated carts don’t tend to get as hot as propane operated lifts and they also don’t release hot exhaust into the already stifling air.

Your warehouse or distribution center is most likely going to be hot – even with ceiling and floor exhaust fans running it’s difficult to keep temperatures down.  It’s up to you to do whatever you can to keep your employees safe and one of the best ways to do that is to operate with the most reliable battery powered lifts.  Lifts and carts from DJ Products will help minimize unnecessary excess heat while ensuring that your employees can safely perform their regular duties without the fear of over exertion.