Wildeck’s Top Five Safety Tips for Industrial Facilities

Following the inflation adjustment of OSHA penalties in 2016, many facilities are reconsidering the way they view OSHA compliance and safety products in their facility. The following blogpost offers insight into five quick and easy wins for enhancing your facility’s safety.

1. Guard Your Rack

Surely, you’ve seen those viral videos of racks collapsing to the ground, leaving a cloud of dust and damaged inventory and equipment in its wake. That loud crashing of inventory and material is a distinct sound that translates to costly damages, delayed operations and injured personnel.

Overloading and rack structure quality is often the first to blame when videos like this surface; however, even the highest quality rack is susceptible to that one final ‘bump’ from a forklift. It is only hindsight of these incidents that forces many facility owners to realize they should have invested in greater protection for their structures.

Guarding rack with strong, protective steel barriers is a minimal investment that can save you thousands of dollars in damaged material, downtime and injuries. Rack protectors are designed to guard both end-of-aisle and inline rack uprights and are available in different levels of strength based on your facility requirements.

Don’t let your facility surveillance tape be the next one to go viral! A simple purchase of quality steel rack protectors now will improve the safety of your rack areas for years to come.

2. Ditch the Tape

Many plants use orange or yellow tape on their floors to designate forklift lanes or safe areas for employees and equipment. But what happens if a forklift misses a turn and veers into one of those safe areas? Is the tape going to stop it?

This scenario is actually quite common. Each year there are about 85 fatal forklift accidents in the United States and 34,900 accidents that result in serious injury, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Of the 85 fatalities, about half occur in manufacturing facilities.

Obviously, a strip of highly visible tape on the floor isn’t going to stop a forklift, but what will stop it is industrial steel guard rail.

Examine your facility and install guard rail along the paths vehicles travel and also around employee areas and machinery. Well manufactured guard rail can withstand a 13,000-pound impact by a forklift traveling 4 MPH. Properly positioned and installed guard rail can help reduce the chance of accidents by preventing forklifts and other vehicles from straying into dangerous or off-limits areas.

3. Secure the Loading Station

With vehicles coming and going and docks that can be several feet from the ground, loading stations are busy places filled with potential dangers. It doesn’t take much for someone to lose their bearings and accidentally step off an unsecured dock and fall to the ground, leaving them injured and the company dealing with a costly workman’s compensation claim.

To alleviate this hazard, safety gates can be installed to provide a secure barrier when the dock is not in use.

A well-designed gate is one that can be easily opened and closed by just one person and meets the 200-pound force protection requirement outlined by OSHA. Several styles of dock gates are available to accommodate a variety of loading docks.

With forklifts and other vehicles constantly backing out of trucks on loading docks, a driver’s vision may be blind to certain areas while in transit. Consider installing guard rail on your loading docks to identify designated travel paths and prevent forklifts from inadvertently striking a worker or storage racks.

4. Use a Rolling Ladder Stand

What’s the best way to perform maintenance just out of reach? It may be quicker and more convenient to climb on top of a nearby object or use a conventional ladder, but those are not good options for many reasons.

For starters, performing work on special machinery could be potentially dangerous if the object you are standing on does not provide an optimal level of balance and support. A shift in body weight or overreaching could be all it takes to lose balance while standing on these objects during work.

Second, a conventional ladder or an impromptu stool could make for a difficult time when performing maintenance on machinery as they don’t provide an actual workstation. For maintenance projects that last hours at times, having to constantly climb up and down a conventional ladder creates a higher potential for slips and fatigue.

Last, because these objects do not provide much support, you (or your tools/equipment) may often end up leaning on your expensive machinery. This unnecessary contact with the machinery could result in potential scratches, damage or other harm to both you or your expensive investment.

The smarter choice is to use a rolling ladder.

Rolling ladders, such as a Rolastair™, are available in standard and custom designs that can meet your application requirements. Using a rolling access ladder with the proper height and construction allows you to obtain access to products or work areas in a safe and efficient manner. They lock in place during use, providing a secure platform, greatly reducing the risk of falling while also minimizing injuries associated with reaching.

Rolling ladders are fairly inexpensive and go a long way toward improving the level of safety for employees.

5. Park the Forklift

Moving materials from one level to another? The traditional way has been to use a forklift, but anytime a moving vehicle is involved, the chance of an accident is present. A safer alternative could be to use a vertical reciprocating conveyor (VRC).

A VRC is like an elevator except it is exclusively used to move materials. Riders are not allowed. Material is loaded onto the VRC platform, secured and then raised or lowered to another level. VRCs are capable of moving materials of all sizes and can even be integrated into new or existing automated systems. Click here for a brief video that highlights some additional VRC advantages.

VRCs can be a safer alternative for moving materials in comparison to forklifts. That’s because you’re removing the human element from the forklift. You could have a very safety conscious person driving the forklift, but there’s still a chance of the vehicle striking something or someone. With a VRC, the forklift is removed completely from the equation, eliminating the chance of a vehicle accident.

To sum up, all companies can make improvements, big or small, toward creating an environment as safe as possible for their employees. The best way to get started is to perform a safety audit of your facility.

A reputable material handling equipment supplier can assist you in identifying areas that could benefit from a safety upgrade. By fostering a greater culture of safety, companies will keep their most valued resources productive and out of harm’s way for years to come. Click here to contact Wildeck about completing a safety audit on your facility today.

If you would like any additional information about the tips or products outlined above, Wildeck can be reached at (800) 325-6939 or info@wildeck.com. We look forward to discussing your facility’s safety needs.

Editor’s Note: This content was originally published as a whitepaper on www.wildeck.com in January 2018 but has been revised to reflect more current information and republished as a blog post.