One is tempted to discard safety concerns in a warehouse as inconsequential. Accidents will happen anyway – and staff will be responsible for it, that is what a layman would think. While those that are not involved in warehouse management can perpetuate this fallacy, the warehouse safety professionals should know better.
The workforce in a warehouse is exposed to numerous risks, most of which can be mitigated by putting a proper work safety system in place. The accidents and injuries are costly in more than one way and management should put an effort to better organize the work. Many incidents can be be avoided, if due diligence is done.
Introduce Weight Limits on Shelves
Industrial shelving systems handle all kinds of loads. Cutting costs may encourage warehouse managers to put as much goods on as little space as possible. While this makes good fiscal logic in the short term, it can lead to dire safety performance in the long run. To counter this unsafe practice work on enforcing weight limits within your premises.
You can easily find heavy duty shelf unit with capacity to hold up to 400 kg of load per shelf (if they are evenly distributed). This should be more than enough to stock your products in a safe manner. Pushing the shelf past its carrying capacity means that you are asking for trouble. The ultimate way this will manifest should not come as a surprise to you.
Choose appropriate type of shelf for the products you stock. The heavy duty longspan shelving systems are quite versatile and will allow you to store smaller units. They are perfect for storing archives full of documents, or racks with all sorts of tiny electrical equipment you can imagine. Some have wire shelves, while other offer adjustable height of shelves.
If you work with big shelves or pallet racks you should work on preventing objects from falling. Sometimes whole racks fall and this is not fun, not by any means. Respect weight capacity to have safer shelves in your warehouse.
Work on Forklift Injuries Prevention
Warehouse workforce becomes too comfortable or complacent in using large machinery. This results in damage to property or injury to staff. It is a complex issue.
You can start working on this problem by making sure only trained staff operates forklifts and similar machines. And those that do hold a permission to use them, have to be aware of their responsibility. Operating them under the influence (even some prescription drugs affect performance) should never take place. And something as innocent as a late evening snooze behind the forklift wheel can lead to mayhem throughout the whole building. To avoid this make sure you maintain enough staff so they can rotate appropriately. Well rested and trained fork-lifters are less likely to cause an accident.
Resist the urge to economize warehouse space. Make your aisles as wide as possible so that your staff will have maneuverable space. This is especially important if more than one forklift are working in roughly the same space. Having some slack will gear you towards increased safety. Tidy up any loose loads and ensure the warehouse is well lit. Large operation centers should consider introducing signal system or even ramps and bumpers to avoid collision and incidents.
Put Someone in Charge of Warehouse Safety
It can be an in house cadre with long experience or you can hire safety management professional. Studying accident reports make it obvious that when things go wrong responsibility shifts very fast. Safety analysts may come to the conclusion that many people among your ranks failed to fulfill their responsibility. What is the purpose of this if the accident already happened? If you have one person that is tasked to supervise warehouse safety then everyone knows where is the loose end.
Give them specific duties. They should be authorized to conduct up-close inspections for wet floors, damaged equipment, issues with lights and other potential hazards. Every single heavy duty shelf unit should be inspected for signs of corrosion, missing clips and bolts or bending shelves. Your work safety manager should walk through aisles on a regular basis and spot damage to stairs and ladders before they pose a problem.
Unreported damage and forklift accidents are not the only target of your safety professional. They need to keep an eye on safety violations among the staff. Turning a blind eye to unsafe practices by your experienced staff doesn’t do a favor to anyone. Inconspicuous workers behavior can become a problem later on, for example driving the forklift too fast.
Make Periodical Assessments the Norm
Safety always rests on layers of fail safe systems. Your supervisors provide very important feedback, yet they might overlook issues. Bring in a fresh set of eyes once in a while to assess the integrity of your work safety system. Find someone that is able to spot vulnerabilities in your safety management before someone gets hurt. Or before you spend a lot of money cleaning up after shelf rack collapse. Outside consultants can also propose a set of measures designed to improve your safety. New technologies emerge every day. What if there is a way to stop a forklift from hitting a shelf by installing a software? What if a sound alarm is activated when someone fails to take safety precaution – the way cars inform drivers that their passengers are not using the safety belt?
Keep an eye on these kind of breakthroughs for they can save you a lot of money in the long run.
