Tag: Business Tips

How You Stand and Sit is the Basis for Ergonomics

Your skeleton is like the steel framework of a building. It is the core structure to which everything else attaches that provides the basic support system for the muscles, ligaments and tendons that allow your body to move.

You may not realize it, but the alignment of the bones in your skeleton when you stand or sit has a huge impact on muscle comfort, which in turn has a significant impact on job efficiency and productivity. Your body posture while working — how you stand and sit on the job — makes a telling difference in how you feel at the end of the workday and is the basis for the science of ergonomics.

How Posture Affects Work

Being forced to stand or sit in an uncomfortable position while working can stress and tire your muscles. Being forced to overextend or place undue pressure on muscles while lifting, reaching, pulling or pushing as you perform work tasks can likewise stretch and strain muscles.

As discomfort increases and turns to pain, productivity decreases as you compensate to relive the strain on your aching muscles. Without relief, pain can become chronic and lead to temporary or even permanent disability.

Ergonomics Improves Performance

Workers come in all shapes and sizes. Rather than forcing workers to contort their bodies to fit fixed equipment configurations, ergonomically-designed equipment allows equipment to be adjusted to provide optimal working conditions for each individual worker. The result is increased satisfaction and comfort for workers and improved worker efficiency and productivity for employers. It’s a win-win solution!

Visit our website or talk to our sales engineers to find the right ergonomic material handling solutions for your business.

What Can We Learn from Failure?

You’ve probably heard the old saying, “What doesn’t kill you makes you strong.” Or “No pain; no gain.” Ask anyone who’s been in business a while and they’ll tell you, you learn from your failures. Those who struggle with a new idea, testing and tweaking it through multiple incarnations until they get it right enjoy a sense of accomplishment unknown to those who simply luck into an idea, though not to imply that there’s no joy in the occasional “gift.” Sometimes, but not often, we get it right the first time. Usually, though, success is a matter of hard work and sacrifice. Perhaps that’s what makes success taste so sweet.

Celebrating Failure: The Power of Taking Risks, Making Mistakes and Thinking Big by Ralph Heath (Career Press, 2009, paperback, 191 pages, $9.26 on Amazon.com) is a smart book and a quick read. Heath’s message is to stop punishing mistakes, yours and your employees’, and start learning from them. Emphasize the learning, not the error, and move on. By embracing our failures we strip them of power. As he points out, the people who make mistakes are the same people who succeed.

Trade-Off: Why Some Things Catch On, and Others Don’t by Kevin Maney (Broadway, 2009, hardcover, 217 pages, $15.64 on Amazon.com) explores why some ideas succeed and others fail. Maney contends the magic formula is a combination of targeting your market correctly and staying true to your goal. Many businesses fail because they don’t make the mutually exclusive choice between convenience (low cost + easy use) and fidelity (premium quality + exclusivity). As he notes, a low-end Mercedes won’t sell, nor would a 5-course McDonalds meal.

The bottom line is deciding what need you want to meet and staying true to your game plan. You can’t be all things to all people. Success often comes fastest when you narrow your goal to meet a specific need. That’s been our experience at DJ Products. Our ergonomically designed carts and tugs won’t do everything, but they do a superior job of getting things from point A to point B without straining taxing your workers. Find out more at DJ Products.com.

Corporate Videos Get Their Own YouTube Site

Billed as YouTube for business, eCorpTV.com seems tailor-made for videophiles like DJ Products’ marketing department! As we’re sure you’ve noticed when you visit our website, we’re great fans of video. At DJ Products, we’ve found that while a picture may be worth a thousand words, a video is the next best thing to putting our product in the customer’s hand. Just as realtors have discovered that video tours draw home buyers, DJ Products has discovered that showing customers what our ergonomic powered carts can do is a highly effective way to sell our product.

That’s the idea behind eCorpTV.com. Businesses from Fortune 500s to small start ups can quickly and easily post their product videos on the site free of charge. As the site developers note, more than 68% of American workers aged 25 to 44 will watch online videos this year. Adding online video marketing to your advertising mix just makes sense. Online videos have the potential to attract not only customers, but investors, journalists and potential employees. Corporations don’t have to worry about competing with stupid pet tricks or humorous rants, eCorpTV.com accepts only G-rated legitimate business videos. They aim to become a quality service for the business community.

We think they’re on the right track. Watch one of the DJ Product ergonomic material handling product videos. We’ve found that no amount of text can show quite as effectively as a video exactly how tight a turn our CartCaddy power tug can make or just how our side-steer powered cart can be maneuvered. If you haven’t added video to your product website yet, it’s time to take a page from the future and start filming!

Invest in Ergonomic Power Movers to Avoid Employee Injury

If you are wondering if it is worth your while to invest in ergonomic equipment like powered movers and warehouse tugs, keep in mind the costs associated with work injuries that are related to overexertion.

According to Risk&Insurance.com, employees who work in construction, transportation and warehousing may need a month or more to recover from injury. You probably need all your staff working at full capacity to complete projects, so having someone out can slow productivity. There are things like illness that you can’t prevent, but you can give your staff ergonomic equipment to help avoid preventable injuries that can result in lost work time and lower morale.

The article from Risk&Insurance.com discussed how,

“The median number of days away from work to recover from occupational injuries/illnesses was eight for the third consecutive year, the BLS [Bureau of Labor Statistics] reported. Transportation and warehousing had the highest incidence rate of all industry sectors, although it was basically unchanged from the previous year…sprains, strains, and tears accounted for 40 percent of the total cases, of which 43 resulted from overexertion.

The back was the body part injured most, at more than one-third”

DJ Products manufactures movers, trailers and tugs that can eliminate the pain and strain of manually pulling and pushing heavy carts or wheeled equipment. Our products are less costly, smaller and more maneuverable that traditional powered equipment. So if you have tried other power movers and found that you were less than satisfied, we think you will be pleased with the functionality of our products.

Please take the time to find a specific electric cart pusher on our website, or call our Sales Engineers for a recommendation on your proper solution. Our Sales Engineer will also be happy to explore custom applications where our base products match primary criteria.

Staying Competitive as Recession Wanes

The economy is finally showing signs of life; although as we mentioned in our last post, recovery is likely to be a slow process. As America recovers from the recession, businesses may find themselves trapped between wary consumers on one side and skittish bankers on the other, further slowing economic recovery. A continued lag in spending and lending means that belt-tightening will remain the norm for at least the next six to 12 months if businesses are to stay competitive and, in some cases, survive.  

In an informal poll conducted last month, Manufacturing & Technology eJournal readers said they planned to rely on a variety of cost-cutting measures over the next year to maintain their competitiveness (click the link above for complete survey results):

  • 36% expand territory
  • 32% seek cost reductions from existing vendors
  • 24% eliminate underperforming products/services
  • 24% employee layoffs
  • 21% reduce salaries or work days
  • 12.5% seek work closer to home

Turning to your own workers for suggestions on how to increase cost-saving measures has proved a successful tactic in many industries during the recession. While concessions made by auto workers and airline employees have garnered the lion’s share of the headlines, workers in nearly every industry and business field have agreed to cut salaries, decrease work hours or forego benefits in order to maintain the solvency of their employer and keep their jobs.

It’s all about sharing the load and allowing workers to buy into the decision-making process. Workers express greater support for solutions they have helped create. And they’re more likely to embrace cost-cutting measures — and exert peer pressure on fellow employees to toe the line — when they feel:

  1. Their efforts will have a direct impact on solving the problem.
  2. More people will be able to keep their jobs because of the sacrifices they are making.
  3. The burden is being shared equally by workers and management.  

That last point may be the most critical. We’ll look at why next time.

Invest in Ergonomic Material Handling Solutions

They say you have to spend money to make money but deciding which expenditures are worthwhile is certainly not easy. Business owners have to concern themselves with the bottom line, often cutting costs to make sure that they don’t wind up on the red. But one area where you might want to consider spending more instead of cutting back is material handling solutions. You may think that not investing in things like industrial power movers or motorized carts will save money because you spend less…but what you are not considering is how much inadequate equipment can cost you in the long run.

Your workers have their own budgets and bottom lines to be concerned about and they may remain silent about the pains and strains of manually pulling and pushing heavy carts and other wheeled equipment because they don’t want to ruffle any feathers. Unfortunately, this means that there may suffer micro-tears and muscle strain that over time gets worse until one day there is an injury that warrants medical attention. In some workplaces, the thought of having just one or two key workers out on medical leave is enough to send management into a panic. It is one thing if employees fall ill or get injured away from the job; having employees suffer injuries at work that could have been prevented with the right equipment is another matter entirely.

Our material handling solutions are not one-size-fits-all: DJ Products will work with you to customize our products so they suit the needs of your workers. Call is at 800-686-2651 to speak with a Sales Engineer today.

Get Ergonomic Material Handling Solutions and Work With Machines Safely

We have a tendency to separate ourselves from the mechanical inventions we use to assist us with work in a ‘man vs. machine’ fashion. Often we forget that the human body is also a remarkable machine but if you mistreat it, you can pay a heavy price. This is why DJ Products designs material handling solutions to change the way you move equipment. We make our products to move in concert with the mechanisms of the human body to eliminate the strains and pains of manually pushing or pulling heavy carts and other equipment.

And while we cannot completely eliminate the strains of the costs of running a business, we do work to make our products less costly than traditional electric equipment.

Some of our solutions include:

Ergonomic Material Handling Electric Carts for Industrial Use

• Carts with casters
• Carts with 4-swivel casters or wagon-wheel style of turning
• Carts in a straight line
• Platform Trucks & Scissor Lifts

Ergonomic Material Handling Carts for Hospitals and the Hospitality Industry
• Hospital carts
• Pulling heavy soiled linen carts
• Maneuvering clean linen metro wire carts
• Pushing stainless steel food carts
• Ergonomic powered flatbed supply carts
• Ergonomic electric flatbed carts for hauling medical supplies and records

Car Equipment Pushers and Trailer Movers for the Automotive Industry
• Car Pusher
• Trailer Mover, Puller, Pusher

Our maneuverable ergonomic material handling solutions may be smaller and lighter than what you are used to so If you need help selecting products, don’t hesitate to call us at 800-686-2651 and one of our Sales Engineers will be more than happy to assist 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.

Business Survival Strategies that Work

This week we’ve been talking about what it will take to survive in today’s challenging economy. We’ve shared marketing ideas from industry experts and our own playbook that have allowed companies to not only survive past economic downturns but thrive in highly competitive markets. The secret to survival in a bear economy is to develop a corporate attitude that is innovative enough to envision new applications for your products, flexible enough to act quickly when a new opportunity presents itself, and customer-oriented enough to anticipate customer needs and respond quickly to customer requests. Our ability to succeed in these areas has made DJ Products a nationwide leader in the innovative design and manufacture of ergonomic motorized carts and powered cart movers.

Through the example of our own company’s experiences, we’d like to demonstrate how businesses can apply the principles of innovation, flexibility and customer service to survive today and position themselves to thrive tomorrow.

Innovation. Innovators in the material handling field, DJ Products realized the value of ergonomic design before it became a popular cause. We realized that ergonomics was likely to become increasingly important as a worker health and safety issue with the power to drastically reduce health care, insurance, disability and workers’ compensation costs. But beyond that, we saw in ergonomics the potential to improve the speed and efficiency of production across a broad range of business environments.

Flexibility. DJ Products has exhibited the flexibility to imagine and develop new markets for products originally designed primarily for industrial settings. The most compact, light-weight versions of our CartCaddy movers are employed daily in health care and hospitality settings. Their small size and easy maneuverability in tight spaces makes them perfect for crowded hospital corridors and hotel hallways. We’ve found applications for our motorized car/truck pushers in the boating industries and recently designed a specialized version for use by auto racing pit crews.

Customer Service. We’re Old School in our belief that customer service must always be our first priority. We pride ourselves on our ability to customize our products to meet specific customer needs. We’re so convinced you’ll like our products, we offer a free trial program before you buy.

Take a page from the DJ Products’ handbook. Companies that emphasize innovation, flexibility and customer service will survive and can even thrive in these challenging economic times.

Bootstraps Still in Fashion for Budding Entrepreneurs

It’s heartening to hear that entrepreneurship is alive and well in America despite the dismal economy. A new business organization is growing in the heart of the American Midwest where it seems that bootstraps are still in fashion! The International Bootstrapping Association held its inaugural meeting in Columbus, Ohio this week. Its goal is to give budding entrepreneurs, known as bootstrappers, a leg up, help them get started, and teach them to survive on self-funding while the economy fights its way back to full recovery.  

“A bootstrapping entrepreneur has to solve problems with creativity and perseverance because they can’t buy the answer,” association co-founder Bill Troy told Margaret Harding of The Columbus Dispatch in an article that appeared on April 10, 2009. “They have to come up with some creative solution that doesn’t cost money.”

Most entrepreneurs don’t have the luxury of investment funding, particularly in the current economy. To keep American entrepreneurship alive, successful Ohio entrepreneurs have pooled their talent and resources to create a self-help organization by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. The organization provides an opportunity for would-be entrepreneurs to learn from the start-up experiences of their already successful, experienced counterparts. The group hopes to create a model that could spark similar chapters nationwide.

The first meeting debuted with a panel discussion followed by work groups. “We really focus on experience, not advice,” Troy, president and founder of Troy Research, told the Dispatch. The group takes a real-life approach to problem solving during its discussions. “It’s what people have really tried and done in the situation, not people telling you what you should do,” Troy explained.

Concerned about the pitfalls of investor-driven business, as all too clearly elucidated by recent events, the Ohio group aims to give entrepreneurs the tools to survive on their own. Troy believes that to survive U.S. entrepreneurship needs to return to the perseverance and scrappiness that defined its early pioneers.

As innovators in the field of ergonomically-designed, battery-powered material handling equipment, DJ Products understands the challenges faced by today’s budding entrepreneurs and salutes the launch of the International Bootstrapping Association.