christopher Harper, Author at DJ Products

Material Handling Solutions Can Prevent Strain

Summer is winding down and the season for carnivals and county fairs is also soon to end. Perhaps at the fair this year you saw someone demonstrate great strength or maybe you attempted to swing a heavy hammer to win a prize. These kinds of challenges are fine for summer fairs but this is not the kind of atmosphere you want to create for your employees.

While it may be fun to demonstrate just how strong you are, it can also be dangerous particularly on the job. In an effort to get things done quickly some employees may take on too much. Those who do not have any injuries that are immediately evident may sustain physical damage that will cause problems later on.

When you give your employees the material handling solutions they need, they will be able to get their work done efficiently with little strain:

•A car and vehicle pusher will eliminate the need for anyone to show how tough he or she are in trying to move a stalled vehicle alone.
•An electric tug can push or pull carts or a vehicle down a rail.
•Powered carts eliminate the strain of manually pulling heavy product, parts carts, or wheeled equipment
•Ergonomic electric flatbed carts for hauling medical supplies and records can eliminate numerous trips or a disastrous attempt to pile materials to high on inadequate equipment.
•A carpet mover makes carpet transportation a job for one person.

We offer a variety of different material handling solutions and they can be adapted as needed for your workplace. Call us at 800-686-2651 and one of our Sales Engineers would be happy to advise you.

The Scientific Roots and Business Applications of Ergonomics

In “Revisiting the Roots of Ergonomics,” ergoweb.com acknowledges that for many, the idea of ergonomics is nothing more than an advertising gimmick, but stresses that true ergonomics is more than a marketing label–it’s science.

Polish scholar Wojciech Jastrzebowski crafted the word “ergonomics” in 1857 when the Industrial Revolution was in full swing. This was the time when large swaths of the world’s population had gone from farm to factory. These workers used machines to do their work and in some ways they were seen as parts of a larger machine and were not always viewed as or treated as human.

However,

” According to Jastrzebowski, if we mismanage ourselves or others, not only will we achieve little or no gain, we may very well cause bigger problems.”

“Big business or small employer, the modern work world has a bottom line – profit. Make human work easier and more productive and it will increase the wealth and well being of the individual, the company, and the society. “

Ergoweb.com uses a resort to illustrate this point, noting that if a resort staff is able to carry out their work comfortably, this will make the resort a pleasant place to stay. However, if a resort is staffed with disgruntled workers, even the beautiful scenery will in not induce visitors to return to a place with an unpleasant atmosphere.

DJ Products makes material handling solutions such as cart pushers and power pullers for a number of industries, including the hospitality industry. You can call one of our Sales Engineers at 800-686-2651 for a recommendation on your proper solution.

Power Tuggers Can Prevent Injury and Increase Productivity

If your employees need to transport heavy items over short distances, your workplace could definitely benefit from using industrial tuggers.

According to Safetycommunity.com:

“At a major food processing plant, workers had to manually push heavy meat carts to maneuver them between processing stations. Concerned about injury risk and worker safety, plant executives turned to DJ Products for ergonomic solutions to their material handling problem.”

The experts at DJ Products recommended the CartCaddyShorty power tugger, a motorized cart mover designed to push, pull and maneuver carts that require turning.

Safetycommunity.com highlighted the importance of finding ergonomic solutions when workers need to transport goods. An employer may think that obtaining a regular cart with wheels will solve the issue, but if that cart has not been specifically designed to help a worker maneuver without twisting the body in harmful ways, this could cause even more problems.

In addition to meat, these tuggers can carry a variety of items such as a bin full of washers, a flat bed of steel or a cart full of cookie dough.

The CartCaddy Shorty was engineered so that an employee carrying a heavy load would be able to move, turn, and maneuver it in tight spaces, such as those in a meat processing plant. Not only does this help prevent injuries, it also helps to ensure that the food being processed gets transported between stations without having a cart tip over. This tugger is the smallest, most maneuverable tug available on the market, and still has plenty of power to handle most push or pull applications.

A tugger can also increase overall productivity. A single employee can now negotiate heavy carts, which may have previously required multiple operators to maneuver. As a result, the operators eliminated from these tasks are available to take on other responsibilities.

Hospitals: Help Your Staff Treat Summer Injuries

Summertime and the livin’ is easy…people like to spend time outside, getting into summer sports and being more active. We all hope for the best but we know that an increase in activity increases the chances of injury. For this reason, hospitals need to stay on alert and be ready for patients who arrive and need help after a baseball game, water skiing, a race, or an impromptu tumble down a hill.

During the summer, you need all of your staff ready to work and assist. You will want your employees ready to work and not injured themselves from attempting to hurry while transporting supplies needed for patients that arrive with injuries. DJ Products makes powered carts including a Powered Dirty Linen Cart, Powered Housekeeping Cart and a Motorized Clean Linen Wire Cart that can keep work moving efficiently and allow employees to navigate tight corners safely.

Our products can also reduce the chance that your employees will experience muscle strain or musculoskeletal injuries as they push or pull carts with heavy loads through hospital corridors. All of our products are battery powered “walk-behind units” that allow for better operator control than traditional wheeled carts. Because of this operating flexibility, our electric cart movers can be used in more applications than standard material handling equipment.

Check out our products online and if you have questions, you can call our Sales Engineers at 800-686-2651 and ask for a recommendation on your proper solution. One of our Sales Engineers will be more than happy to explore custom applications where our base products match primary criteria.

Star Trek’s Vision of Material Handling Flawed

The legendary television show Star Trek and the franchise’s many spin-offs brought the future to the present. Many of those futuristic gizmos sparked the imaginations of young inventors resulting in tools, electronics and appliances that are commonplace today. So I was surprised to see what looked suspiciously like an ordinary forklift truck creeping along the space dock floor in the newest Star Trek movie. Of course, the good news is that the material handling industry appears to be alive and well in the 24th century. However, with their staggering accident and injury rate, you’d think that engineers of the future would have come up with a more efficient, more cost-effective, more ergonomic tool for moving material and equipment from place to place than antiquated forklifts.

This is one place where the generally forward-thinking minds who envision the Trek universe got it wrong. Even in our century, forklift trucks are already on their slow way out. Spurred by safety issues and high operating and maintenance costs, a growing number of savvy business and industry leaders are choosing to replace their forklifts with safe, fuel-efficient, ergonomically-designed, motorized material handling carts and movers. A few centuries from now, I can envision sleekly-designed material handling movers gliding silently on cushions of air above the floor surface, either completely automated or guided by shiny robots; but primitive forklifts? Surely the material handling industry will have progressed beyond that old dinosaur by then!

Companies that have replaced their forklift trucks with ergonomically-designed motorized carts are already realizing decreased accident/injury rates and enjoying the accompanying significant savings in medical, insurance, worker’s compensation and disability costs. Every year forklift accidents are responsible for 100 worker deaths — 25% from overturns — and more than 20,000 injuries. Ergonomically-designed CartCaddies promote operator control and safety with their walk-behind design, strategically placed ergonomic controls, and easy maneuverability.

And when it comes to maintenance costs, sure to be a factor when you’re building mega-trillion dollar starships, battery-operated CartCaddies win over forklifts hands down. The average annual battery/maintenance cost of operating an ergonomic electric CartCaddy is around $300 per year. Compare that to forklifts where operating and maintenance costs comprise 80% of the total cost of ownership over the life of a unit. Annual forklift fuel costs alone can run from $15,000 for gas and diesel units to $3,000 to $8,000 for electric and battery-operated units.

If you want to experience the future of material handling today, contact a DJ Products ergonomic sales engineer and ask about our full line of CartCaddy products.

How Ergonomics Saves Money

Musculoskeletal injuries caused by overexertion are responsible for 25% of all workplace injuries and affect one in every 200 workers, according to data compiled by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Overexertion injuries caused by straining during pushing, pulling, lifting and carrying tasks cost U.S. businesses more than $1 billion in compensation costs and 12 million lost workdays every year. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg! According to the National Council on Compensation Insurance, more than 50% of worker’s compensation claims are for debilitating back injuries that affect 1.75 million (1 in 5) workers each year — at an annual price tag of $30 billion. The time-lost cost of a single back injury is estimated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics at $26,000.

Ergonomic equipment is designed to eliminate and prevent muscle strain, overexertion, back injury and the whole gamut of musculoskeletal and repetitive motion injuries that eat away at U.S. business profit margins. Ergonomically-designed equipment reduces the risk of overexertion and injury from pushing, pulling, lifting, carrying, bending and twisting tasks. The equipment, not the worker, carries the burden, eliminating expensive medical, insurance, worker’s compensation and lost work-hour expenses. When workers are less physically tasked and workplace safety is increased, worker morale improves, production increases and product quality goes up.

One study of U.S. manufacturers found that every dollar invested in ergonomics resulted in a savings of $4. DJ Products, a national leader in the manufacture of ergonomically-designed carts and movers, has found that most customers recoup their investment in ergonomic equipment within the first year. DJ Products specialized in providing affordable ergonomic solutions to material handling applications. We manufacture material handling equipment that is designed to eliminate the strain and pain of manually pushing or pulling heavy carts, equipment or materials. Our ergonomically-designed equipment is smaller, more maneuverable and less costly than traditional material handling equipment such as forklifts, walkies and motorized riding tugs. DJ Products specializes in battery powered, walk behind carts, movers and pushers that offer maximum safety and maneuverability. If you’re looking to get better value from your material handling dollar, contact DJ Products’ expert ergonomic sales team today!

The History of Ergonomics

Ergonomics which is in lay term creating a “good fit” between humans and tools is certainly not new. In fact humans have been customizing tools since the very first stone and pebble tools where created by early humans in ages long ago. In fact, Bernardino Ramazinni wrote about his findings on stress and repetitive injuries caused by work related injuries in one of his medical journals in 1713.

In 1857 Wojciech Jastrzebowski coined the actual word ergonomics, which we use even today. Since the industrial revolution in the early 1900’s ergonomics has been in the workplace although maybe not with the focus that we see in today’s industrial environments. But the topic was still discussed with a focus on productivity and reducing worker injury.

After World War II there was an increased focus on ergonomics as productivity and human and machine interaction on the assembly line became of paramount concern as large corporations worked to increase their bottom line and down time, retraining, and injuries can become expensive both in man hours, productivity, and morale of the work force.

Today, ergonomics is not only good business but leverages profit. Although the initial investment on cart caddies, movers, and other powered movers may seem steep to some business, the initial investment cost can be spent 10 times over on a workman’s compensation claim or injury lawsuit. DJ Products has a complete line of powered warehouse and material handling solutions. They provide free videos and you can even arrange an onsite demonstration in many cases. Enabling your workforce to move heavy loads without injury may just end up being one of the very best investments you can make for your own business this year. Call the friendly team at DJ Products at 1-800-686-2651, they’d be happy to show you how ergonomic equipment can make the difference for you and your facility!

For more information and details on the history of ergonomics we invite you to visit Ergoweb.

Reduce Effects of Chronic Pain with Ergonomic Material Handling Solutions

A 2011 article from BusinessInsurance.com stated, “Chronic pain is a infrequent but growing aspect of workers compensation claims…” and advised companies to try to prevent injured employees from developing chronic pain. It added that companies are seeing more reports of chronic pain because of an aging workforce.

Chronic pain can have a number of sources and the article notes that it is hard to define. Still, we would advise companies to do what they can to prevent the kinds of on-the-job injuries that lead to chronic pain. (There is little you can do about illness or injuries workers suffer outside of work.) However, you can provide equipment that is ergonomically sound and functions in concert with the musculoskeletal system. That way, the machines being used at your facility will not be the cause repeated injury among your workforce.

DJ Products makes ergonomic material handling equipment that eliminate the strain of pulling heavy products, parts carts or wheeled equipment. With our powered carts, pullers and pushers, your employees can move everything from soiled linen carts to carpets to cars. Our walk-behind units use battery power to move heavy loads efficiently so the operator is able to maintain control without feeling a lot of strain.

Purchasing material handling solutions from us won’t strain your budget either. But if you are hesitant, think about the costs of workers compensation claims and the strain on your workforce that occurs when even one employee needs to be way from work for an extended period of time.

You can contact one of our Sales Engineers at 800-686-2651 to learn more about which of our products would be best suited to your industry.

Powered Hospital Carts and Some TLC

All hospitals strive to provide their patients with the best care possible. Aside from hiring talented and intelligent doctors, hospitals look for staff that can empathize with the sick patient and their family and most importantly provide TLC, or some tender, loving, care. They look for this type of employee because they know that creating a warm and caring environment in the hospital can go a long way in helping the sick recover.

Moods are “infectious”. If someone smiles at you, you’ll feel better and pass that goodwill around as well. As such, it probably makes a lot of sense to ensure that all hospital staff, including maintenance staff and orderlies, are in excellent spirits.

For these employees, an honest day’s work involves pushing and pulling heavy linen and laundry carts, garbage carts, food carts, medical supply carts and more. There is a tremendous amount of physical strain that these employees need to bear and of course it can impact their mood. Additionally, all the pulling and pushing can cause staff charged with these tasks, significant back pain or even injury. This will definitely not bring a smile to their lips, and at best will produce sullen and unfriendly workers.
Imagine if they were not as tired or achy from all their strenuous labor. They would likely be more cheerful, sharing smiles and “hellos” with the doctors, nurses and patients they pass in the hallways. This will lift the mood in the hospital making everyone feel better.

DJ Products provides ergonomic, electric pullers, pushers and carts that are specifically designed with the hospital setting in mind. Powered dirty linen carts, motorized clean linen wire cart and more are some of the specialized products that can help enhance the atmosphere at your hospital.

Hotels and Hospitals: Powered Carts Can Increase Efficiency & Reduce Strain

Employees in the hospitality industry as well as those working in actual hospitals can benefit by using a motorized powered cart to transport items like linens and cleaning supplies. If your employees are currently using carts that they push manually, consider the strain they may be under and consider switching to powered carts from DJ Products, such as a Powered Housekeeping Cart or a Motorized Clean Linen Wire Cart.

The Powered Housekeeping Cart and the Motorized Clean Linen Wire Cart can haul loads up to 700 lbs. The variable speed twist grips allow the operator to travel between 0-3 mph, forward or backward. Both of these carts can be used for an entire shift without re-charging. As long as they are charged, you do not have to worry that an employee will need to take time away from work tasks to wait while a powered cart charges. These carts can also be customized as needed for different environments.

Powered carts will not only help reduce strain and aches from repeated pulling, pushing and tugging–they may also reduce the time it takes for employees to complete their rounds. All of our products are battery powered “walk-behind” units, allowing better control by the operator, even in tight, difficult spaces. Allowing your workers to use ergonomically designed equipment, like motorized carts, can do a lot to reduce injury and the loss of productivity that goes with it. The proactive implementation of ergonomic policies can improve worker morale and make your operations much more efficient.

Be it a hospital or a casino or a hotel, you need to keep things going around the clock—linens need to be changed and rooms need to be cleaned on a continual basis. Powered carts can reduce the time it takes for employees to get this work completed and they will feel less strain as they finish their tasks.