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Monthly Archives: July 2017

Blog, Ergonomics, Safety, Warehouse Equipment

Warehousing Pallet Options: What to Know

Material handling continues to evolve as new technologies emerge, but the humble pallet remains a constant fixture in warehouses around the world. That’s not to say that pallets haven’t changed over the years. Due to specific industry needs and the desire to be sustainable, companies have developed a number of new strategies in regards to pallets, which standardized just about everything into easy-to-handle parcels. While Ancient Egyptians used skids as far back as 1,000 B.C., modern paletts came into existence as a result of the gas-powered forklift and Word War II. The U.S. used tens of millions of pallets to supply troops on both fronts. Innovations like the four-way pallet, which allowed forklifts to pick up pallets from any direction,…more

Blog, Ergonomics, OSHA, Safety, Warehouse Equipment

Ergonomics and Pallet Building: Problems and Solutions

Rising worker’s compensation claims and an aging workforce responsible for pallet building tasks are causing warehouse managers to rethink their processes. Add in the fact that industry experts project the use of pallets to increase through 2019, and you can see why it’s necessary to reevaluate the pallet building and unloading process. Even if warehouse managers didn’t care about productivity and preventing injuries to their staff, which is an unlikely proposition, insurance companies are insisting that clients implement ergonomic solutions in warehouses to reduce payouts for injured staff. Worker’s Comp Cases Strain Insurers’ Pocketbooks The issue is complex, but it boils down to this: Material handlers are older and in worse shape than they have been in the past, and…more

Blog, Electrical, Safety, Warehouse Equipment

Measuring Electrical Conduit Sizes at the Job Site

For electricians, pulling cable is only half the job. Before they can even begin installing the cabling, they have to create vast networks of electrical conduit. Electricians typically run multiple cables through a single raceway, so it’s vital that they know how much space is available inside the duct. That isn’t always apparent at a glance. The trade sizes of rigid metal electrical conduit don’t always correspond exactly to actual inside diameter. Even worse, bundles of conduit can arrive on-site unlabeled, and it isn’t easy to tell the difference between 1.25- and 1.5-inch conduit with the naked eye. For instance, according to online resource the Engineering ToolBox: 5-inch metal conduit actually has an inside diameter of 0.622 inches. The inside…more

Blog, OSHA, Safety, Warehouse Equipment

Forklift Work Platforms and OSHA Compliance

There’s an inherent risk in elevating staff using a forklift work platform. Given that risk, it’s no surprise that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has quite a bit to say on the matter. In fact, at one point the federal agency even discussed banning the use of forklifts as a support for work platforms. After a lengthy discussion, OSHA decided that, if used properly, the practice could be safe enough to allow. However, they created a list of standards for the use of elevated personnel platforms. Here’s a summary of some of the most important requirements from those standards. Never move a forklift horizontally while a worker is elevated. This is expressly forbidden by OSHA 451(c)(2)(v) and something that…more