Trailer Dolly Archives

Distribution Center Managers – Get to Know the Trailer Caddy from DJ Products Inc.

Improving Distribution with a Trailer Dolly

Streamlining loading and unloading operations and ensuring facility safety are important responsibilities of a distribution center manager. According to OSHA, over 25% of warehouse accidents occur at the loading dock.

Using a trailer caddy is an efficient and safe way to shunt trailers around your facilities. This is where the TrailerCaddy from DJ Products Inc. comes in. Herein is what you need to know about this innovative product.

About Our TrailerCaddy – Key Features

The TrailerCaddy – The Electric Yard Dog is a motorized piece of equipment that enables an operator to move semi-trailers easily around distribution centers, warehouses, or shipping yards. A built-in high voltage (48 Volt) battery, capable of supporting extended usage, powers the trailer dolly.

A powerful hydraulic system enables the product to move trailers up to 100,000 pounds. The caddy is a walk-behind unit, permitting forward-facing operation for better control and safety.

It has a compact build and features precise speed controls for operational flexibility. This translates to exceptional maneuverability, which can ensure efficient and safe material handling in confined spaces. The TrailerCaddy has simple and intuitive operation, allowing any employee to use it without formal training or certifications.

How Our Product Benefits Your Operations

Any dockworker can operate the equipment when the shipment arrives. You don’t have to outsource a certified driver to maintain operational efficiency.

Forward-facing operation offers clear sightlines and minimizes yard dangers. The TrailerCaddy is compact and features precise speed control. These aspects increase maneuverability, helping the user avoid obstacles, especially in smaller yards.

By eliminating the need for yard trucks and the CDL drivers required to operate them, our product helps you reduce operational costs. This is not to mention its affordability and low maintenance.

Conclusion

When it comes to distribution facility operations, a trailer dolly can solve many challenges associated with shunting semi-trailers. DJ Products Inc. is a trusted manufacturer of best-in-class material handling equipment.

Our TrailerCaddy ensures operational efficiency, safety, and cost savings at your distribution yard. Feel free to call us at 800-686-2651 to learn more about our products.

How to Boost Warehouse Productivity Part One

Warehouse Productivity

Productivity is one of the biggest priorities for warehouses. It helps businesses save money, keeps operations running smoothly, and can lead to an increase in customer satisfaction. How can your warehouse boost productivity? The following tips can help.

Invest in More Efficient Equipment

Moving heavy loads from aisle to aisle or around other warehouse areas can be time-consuming. Using a forklift or other traditional equipment may lower productivity. Workers might have a hard time maneuvering them around, especially in tighter spaces.

Electric warehouse tugs offer an effective solution. These tugs have better maneuverability, resulting in less time spent moving heavy loads around. This helps improve productivity in warehouses.

Aim for a Better Organized Warehouse

Having items scattered around can interfere with how productive your warehouse is. Work on ensuring that all items, from merchandise to equipment and supplies, are organized as much as possible.

Improve the layout of your warehouse for a better workflow. Use signage, labels, and maps to make sure that all staff know where everything is located. Signs and labels should be highly visible and easy to read. Maps can help newer staff know where to go. These steps help streamline the work process, leading to enhanced productivity.

Improve Inventory Management

Keeping an accurate count of your inventory and organizing it is crucial for your warehouse. Make use of bins and other storage solutions to compartmentalize different items. This allows workers to easily and quickly find what they need.

If you haven’t done so already, look into automated inventory management software. This provides you with a simple way to keep close track of the products stored in your warehouse, along with other items. You can then order ahead to replace low inventory as needed.

How else can you manage inventory more effectively? Evaluate your receiving process to ensure that products are handled efficiently when they arrive. This helps prevent boxes from building up in the receiving area and ensures that orders can be promptly picked, packed, and shipped.

Electric warehouse tugs can significantly increase your warehouse’s productivity. Contact DJ Products to get more detailed information on our material handling solutions.

5 Tips to Make Your Warehouse Green

Utilizing Motorized Trailer Movers for a Greener Warehouse

How green is your warehouse? No, it’s not a reference to the color scheme. Green warehousing incorporates eco-friendly practices and equipment such as our motorized trailer mover. Use these green warehousing tips to reduce your expenses as well as your carbon footprint.

1. Use hybrid or electric vehicles whenever possible.

Reliance on fossil fuels is a double whammy. The practice is a significant drain on natural resources and adds pollution to the air we breathe. Increasing numbers of transportation companies are converting gas-fueled fleets to hybrid or electric vehicles. Is your current 3PL one of them?

2. Reuse, repurpose, and recycle storage and packaging materials.

Green packaging materials may appear costly, but they save money in the long run by reducing energy consumption, making them highly economical. Use of green packaging also demonstrates your commitment to environmental awareness to suppliers and customers. If a packaging conversion isn’t in the budget right now, institute a program of reusing and recycling pallets, containers, and other storage and packaging materials.

3. Add eco-friendly structural features.

Cut your heating and cooling bills by improving insulation, installing solar panels, and painting the roof in light reflective colors. Some warehouses are moving to green roofs, which use plants and vegetation for better aesthetics as well as reduced energy usage.
Use LED (light-emitting diode) lights wherever possible, especially in outdoor areas. These lights use up to 75 percent less electricity than traditional bulbs and they don’t need to be replaced as frequently.

4. Limit or eliminate use of paper.

Technology is enabling us to move closer to the long-promised paperless society.

Implement a RFID (radio-frequency identification) warehouse management system in which manual paper-based forms of tracking inventory are replaced with receivers, transmitters, and electromagnetic tags.
Tablets and other devices allow digital storage of data rather than paper documents.

5. Maximize storage space.

Ensure that all products and materials are properly stored and clearly labeled.
Place fast-turning SKUs in easily accessible locations.

Green Your Warehouse with a Motorized Trailer Mover from DJ Products

Our electric tugs, movers, and pushers are designed to be environmentally friendly and safer to use than gas-powered equipment. Contact us today to learn more.

5 Ways to Improve Your Distribution Center’s Focus on Sustainability

Improve Sustainability with a Motorized Trailer Dolly

Becoming more sustainable can help your distribution center save money, attract more business, and improve efficiency. Focusing on sustainability also helps ensure that your company stays in compliance with the latest government regulations. From using more eco-friendly equipment, such as a motorized trailer dolly, to doing energy audits, find out how you can make your distribution center more sustainable.

Conduct an Energy Audit

Boosting sustainability involves knowing where to cut back on energy usage. A professional energy audit can reveal what uses the most energy in your distribution center, such as your HVAC equipment or forklifts. This audit can help you determine which changes to make in your business for greater sustainability.

Switch to Sustainable Packaging Materials

The materials used for packaging products can end up causing a considerable amount of waste. Switch to using packaging that’s more sustainable, such as packaging made from recycled materials. Reducing packaging size as much as possible also helps cut down on waste.

Replace Older HVAC Equipment

An older HVAC system doesn’t offer the same energy efficiency as new models. Replace HVAC equipment that’s nearing the end of its lifespan with energy-efficient heating and cooling systems. This change helps promote sustainability, while also lowering your energy bills.

Change to Energy-Efficient Lighting

The kind of lighting in your distribution center can affect how sustainable your company is. Replace traditional bulbs with more energy-efficient bulbs, such as LED lights. For even more efficiency, consider using lighting with motion sensors to help cut down on energy usage. These sensors turn lights on and off as needed throughout the workday.

Invest in Eco-Friendly Equipment

Forklifts and other traditional equipment used in distribution centers typically run on gas or other fossil fuels. They also use a significant amount of energy. Consider making the switch to more eco-friendly equipment, such as a motorized trailer dolly. These trailer dollies run on electricity rather than fossil fuels. This offers a cleaner source of energy and helps reduce energy consumption.

Need help choosing the right motorized trailer dolly to boost sustainability in your company? Contact DJ Products to learn more about our material handling solutions for distribution centers and other businesses.

Tips to Keep Warehouse Workers Warm in a Cold Warehouse this Winter

winter warehouse tips

Frigid temperatures can create an uncomfortable or even hazardous work environment for warehouse employees. Whether staff members are using a forklift or a motorized trailer dolly to move heavy loads around, it’s important to help them stay warm. The following tips can help ensure that your workers can handle the cold, while staying safe and productive.

Provide Education

Educating staff members on working in a cold warehouse to help reduce the risk of cold stress. If your warehouse doors frequently open and close, this is even more important, since more cold air flows in. Workers should know how to recognize signs of hypothermia, frostbite, and similar signs of cold stress. They should also know how to dress warmly and how long to work in cold conditions.

Encourage the Right Snacks and Beverages

Workers should avoid drinking hot coffee to stay warm, since this kind of beverage can dehydrate them. Instead, staff members should drink water or other fluids, such as sports drinks that provide electrolytes. Employees should also eat snacks that offer high amounts of protein, healthy fats, and complex carbs.

Offer a Space for Warming Up

Workers need some kind of environment that allows them to escape the cold. Set up a heated break room or office where staff can go when they need to warm up. Another option is to set up space heaters in safe areas, so workers can warm up without leaving the warehouse floor.

Invest in Winter Wear

Consider providing workers with gloves, hats, and other winter wear to protect against the cold. This can help ensure that your staff are safe from freezing temperatures while doing their job. Instead of providing these, you can encourage staff to wear their own items at work.

Warm Up the Warehouse

Take steps to keep drafts and cold air out of your warehouse, so it stays warmer. Seal up gaps, improve airflow, and schedule a tuneup for the heating system. These steps can help keep your warehouse’s interior temperature warmer all winter long.

Exploring other ways to keep workers safe, such as purchasing a motorized trailer dolly? Visit DJ Products to learn more about our material handling solutions.

5 Industries that Would Benefit From a Motorized Trailer Dolly

Industries that Need Motorized Trailer Dollies

Is reducing the number of workplace injuries on your list of resolutions for 2024? Moving heavy materials puts excess strain on muscles and joints, resulting in acute and chronic injuries. Lighten the load for your workers with use of a motorized trailer dolly in these labor-intensive industries.

How Does a Motorized Trailer Dolly Benefit These 5 Industries?

1. Agriculture

While heavy materials are usually associated with manufacturing, the agriculture industry also involves moving large equipment as well as animals.

Flatbed trailers are used to move large and sometimes awkward items, such as bales of hay.
A motorized dolly allows smooth maneuvering of livestock trailers that transport horses, cattle, and other animals.
Tractors and combines are fixtures at most agricultural facilities. Our Trailer Dolly lets a single employee move them with ease.

2. Food & Beverage

Shoppers usually don’t realize how much effort is involved in transporting groceries to keep supermarkets and food distribution centers filled. Motorized dollies can safely move trailers holding several pallets full of canned good, dairy products and beverages.

3. Manufacturing

Finished products of any size, from computer chips to cars, involve massive quantities of raw materials. It can also take massive quantities of time and effort to move those materials from one place to another in preparation for the manufacturing process. Using our motorized dolly to do the heavy lifting provides a significant boost to productivity levels.

4. Construction

Does any industry involve bulkier and heavier materials than construction? Items such as steel girders, wooden beams and cement slabs cry out for trailers. No matter what’s being transported, our motorized dolly will make quick work of it.

5. Distribution Centers, Fulfillment Centers and Warehouses

Businesses rarely have enough onsite space to store inventory and supplies for the long term. Facilities such as distribution centers, fulfillment centers and warehouses serve as a “middle man” between manufacturer and business. With constant movement of trucks in and out of the yard, a motorized trailer dolly is an absolute necessity.

Motorized Material Handling Solutions from DJ Products

Our Trailer Dolly is just one of the full line of battery-powered tugs, moves and pushers from DJ Products. Call 800.686.2651 to learn more.

How to Improve Safety and Efficiency with a Motorized Trailer Dolly

Enhanced Efficiency of the Motorized Trailer Dolly

Dictionary.com defines material handling as “the loading, unloading and movement of goods, as within a factory or warehouse,” generally involving the use of mechanical devices. Our material handling experts explain how battery-operated aids, such as our motorized trailer dolly, help to improve safety and efficiency in your workplace.

What Is Material Handling Equipment?

Broadly defined, material handling equipment is anything that allows effective protection, movement and storage of items and products. This can range from cranes and dollies to refrigerated containers for food.

Much of the activity in a warehouse involves loading and unloading pallets and transporting materials throughout the inbound and outbound processes. Material handling also extends to the yard, where trailers have to be guided into and out of the loading docks. Our motorized trailer dolly lets a single worker navigate trailers weighing up to 100,000 pounds with ease.

OSHA Safety Regulations

The Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) has specific guidelines governing safety features on material handling equipment. This provides a firm standard with no gray areas, so companies know exactly what is required of them.

Safety features on our trailer dolly include:

Neutral throttle braking
Safety stop switch
Safety horn
Safety strobe flashing light
Solid tread tires

The trailer dolly is also ergonomically designed, with features such as a variable speed thumb twist pad, to prevent repetitive motion injuries from excessive strain on the musculoskeletal system.

Eco-Friendly and Low Maintenance

High fuel costs can greatly reduce the cost-effectiveness of gas-powered material handling equipment. In addition, they are expensive to maintain and generate fumes that pose a risk to the environment, as well as to the health of your workers.

Our trailer dolly operates on batteries that provide a full shift’s worth of operation when fully charged. The dolly navigates smoothly in tight quarters and up and down inclines, with a reduced noise level and no dangerous fumes.

Choose the Motorized Trailer Dolly from DJ Products

Our trailer dolly pays for itself in reduced workplace injuries and increased productivity. Call 800.686.2651 or use the chat feature on our website to learn more about our full line of tugs, pushers and movers from our helpful Sales Engineers.

Safety Tips for Your Semi Trailer Transit Yard

A Motorized Trailer Dolly Improves Trailer Yards

Our battery-powered trailer dolly greatly improves the safety factor in your semi-trailer transit yard. Add these four helpful tips to boost productivity while preventing costly workplace injuries and accidents.

1. Strictly enforce a safe speed limit in the yard.

Regardless of the type of motor vehicle, excessive speed is usually one of the primary causes of accidents. Due to the size and composition of these vehicles, even a low-impact collision can result in serious damage or injury.

Post speed limit signs in visible spots around the transit yard and maintain consistent enforcement of the rules.
Control traffic with methods such as speed bumps, rumble strips and chicanes, which are serpentine curves that must be navigated at lower speeds.

2. Use signs, signals and markings to promote awareness of safety procedures.

Utilize the same shapes, symbols and colors, such as “Stop” and “Yield,” that are found in conventional traffic signs. This allows for instant recognition without the need to learn a new set of symbols.
Signs should be placed in high-visibility spots and kept clean and unobscured. If work activities take place during nighttime hours, include reflectors or other sources of illumination.
Mirrors can be a useful aid if there are sharp turns or other areas with limited visibility.

3. Maintain situational awareness.

Semi-trailer transit yards are sites of constant activity, where the surroundings change from one minute to the next. Just a few seconds of inattention can mean the difference between safety and chaos. Workers should get in the habit of putting all their focus on current activity in the yard. This includes staying off of cell phones and other distracting devices.

4. Clearly designate pedestrian and traffic routes.

Workplace activities require pedestrians and vehicles to operate within the same space.

Create clearly delineated pedestrian routes.
Make sure the more dangerous areas are marked as, “No Pedestrian Entry.”

Create a Culture of Safety with the Trailer Dolly from DJ Products

Our trailer dolly is only one of the eco-friendly tugs, movers and pushers we offer to fit any workplace application. Find out which solution fits your specific needs by calling 800.686.2651 to speak with one of our Sales Engineers.

Move More with Less with an Electric Tug on Your Side

Improve Safety and Efficiency

Having employees manually pull or push heavy loads or carts around can take a toll on their physical well-being and raise the risk of injuries. Manual labor also takes a longer time overall, since employees need to move carefully to avoid accidents. When you want to improve safety and efficiency in your facility, and there are many benefits to electric tugs.

How an Electric Tug Works

An electric tug runs on a motor rather than requiring manual operation. Some tugs also have hydraulic lift systems that can pick up loads for carrying. Being motorized allows employees to maneuver the tug and direct it from place to place without the use of physical labor. These tugs run on battery power, which can be recharged as often as needed. Many have a charge that lasts for a full workday.

Benefits of Electric Tugs

Using an electric tug provides several benefits for companies, including better safety and greater efficiency. These tugs prevent workers from having to manually pull and push heavy loads and equipment around. Instead, they can use the tug to move large pieces of equipment, heavy loads, and wheeled vehicles around. This helps reduce the risk of injuries and accidents in your workplace. The amount of force needed to move equipment or loads around is considerably less with an electric tug.

An electric tug can also help employees get work done more efficiently. These tugs can push or pull heavy loads and equipment around more quickly than manual labor. This allows employees to accomplish more during the workday instead of spending a significant amount of time moving one load or piece of equipment.

Electric Tug Solutions from DJ Products

DJ Products offers electric tug solutions for multiple industries. These tugs have a variety of wheel load, cart, and attachment configurations available, making them versatile. Our CartCaddyHD Chain Drive Electric Tug can move up to 50k pounds of equipment and lift up to 6k pounds. We also have the CartCaddy WagonWheel Shorty Tug that can pull up to 3k pounds.

If you’re interested in purchasing electric tugs, contact DJ Products. Our customer service team can help you find the right solutions for your business.

Explore RV Trusted the Trailer Caddy to Optimize Productivity and It Can Do The Same For You

A Motorized Trailer Dolly is Essential

RV dealerships and rental companies need dependable ways to move RVs around in showrooms, on lots, or from one location to another. For Explore RV, this involves using motorized trailer dollies from DJ Products to handle these moves. Find out more about why Explore RV has nothing but praise for the TrailerCaddy 6K 36V trailer dolly.

Versatile Performance

Explore RV carries a large selection of rental RVs, including small bumper pulls and spacious fifth wheels. Hauling these RVs around requires a solution that works for all sizes. Instead of having to invest in multiple forklifts, the company uses the TrailerCaddy to move all of its RVs, from the smallest bumper pull to the largest fifth wheel. This kind of versatility helps save Explore RV money, while also providing efficient ways to move a variety of RVs.

Dependability

Our motorized trailer dollies offer reliability and durability, which helps Explore RV and other businesses reduce costs on equipment expenses. Explore RV has been using the TrailerCaddy without any issues. Instead of having to deal with equipment that breaks down often or requires major repairs, our trailer dollies provide exceptional performance over the years. Explore RV recommends the TrailerCaddy for moving trailers short distances thanks to its dependable quality.

Improved Efficiency and Safety

Explore RV appreciates how easily our trailer dollies can move RVs around in different types of settings and on various surfaces, especially indoor venues where forklifts can’t be used. The company has been able to move their RVs around on their lots and within their showrooms with better efficiency using our battery-powered trailer dollies. They’ve also used our trailer dollies to move RVs from their location to convention centers or other locations for shows. These solutions have helped the company boost safety and efficiency overall.

Try Our Trailer Mover Solutions

Our trailer dollies can help your business handle the challenges that come with having to move large pieces of equipment or vehicles around.

If you’re looking for a reliable trailer dolly for your business, contact DJ Products. Our motorized trailer dollies are suitable for a wide range of businesses, including RV dealerships, warehouses, and airport hangars.