safety Archives - DJ Products

Got to Move a Heavy Dumpster – Use Our Safe Lifting and Pushing Tips

If you need your employees to move a dumpster, there’s always a risk of injury. Without a dumpster pusher, it’s important to understand how to safely maneuver the dumpster without causing any physical strains or injuries.

To help, we would like to share some safe lifting tips with you. Here are some guidelines in the event that you aren’t sure how to keep yourself or your employees protected during heavy moves.

DJ Products Offers These Safe Lifting Tips

Preventing injury is often easy once you know the proper techniques. If you don’t have a dumpster pusher in house, you should focus on these safe lifting tips:

Take a moment to think about the move before you start.
Try to keep the weight as close to your waist as possible.
Find a stable position to stand before attempting the lift.
Make sure you have a tight hold on the load.
Lift with your legs. Avoid lifting with your back.
Don’t twist your body when you lift.
Look ahead and keep moving smoothly.
Don’t lift more than you can handle.
Put the load down and then make any necessary adjustments.

The Benefits of a Dumpster Pusher

A dumpster pusher offers your business so many great benefits. It can significantly cut down on the manpower it takes to move a dumpster. Also, you may find that the number of injuries your business reports each year will show a marked decrease. For some employers, after reviewing their workers comp claims, they discovered that a high number of injuries were due to moving dumpsters.

We’d love to know how we can help you. Contact us!

Dumpster or Compactor – The Pros and Cons

Before Making a Decision, It’s ALWAYS Important to Consider the Pros and Cons.

Proper trash room maintenance keeps your workplace clean and reduces the risk of injury. Is a dumpster or compactor best suited for your needs? Here’s a look at the pros and cons of each to help you choose the right solution for your application.

Dumpsters and Compactors: What’s the Difference

Dumpsters are large metal containers with volumes ranging from 10-yards to 30-yards. They are practical for a wide range of both household and commercial refuse and they are generally emptied by a trash hauling service that picks up every one to two weeks.
Trash compactors come in indoor and outdoor models. Thanks to the compressing action they can hold a greater volume of trash, but they’re not recommended for disposal of items such as oils, wood products, electronic items and toxic materials.

Which One Is Right for You?

If your business generates a lot of trash on a daily basis and your current garbage containers are being overfilled, a compactor is better for controlling the volume.
Dumpsters don’t seal tightly, which means they tend to attract rodents and other pests.
How does your trash removal service calculate charges? If it’s by the pickup, a compactor could save you a significant amount of money, but if it’s by the pound, it could be a more expensive option.

Put Safety First with the WasteCaddy from DJ Products

Now that you’ve selected the right container, make another choice for trash room safety. Our best-selling WasteCaddy can transport loaded dumpsters weighing up to 5,000 pounds, preventing the need for manual pushing and pulling.

Visit our website for more information.

Bending, Pushing, Pulling, the Costs of Doing It Wrong May Ring Up a Steep Bill

Be Mindful, Don’t Let Your Employees Overexert Themselves… It Could Lead to Serious Injury!

Overexertion from lifting, pulling, pushing, carrying or throwing objects in the workplace ranks as the number one cause of disabling injury, according to the 2016 Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index. This type of injury cost employers more than $15.08 billion in direct costs. That is approximately 25 percent of the total direct cost burden relating to workplace injuries for U.S. companies .

Use smart lifting and moving methods

The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that more than 36 percent of injuries that required missed workdays were shoulder and back injuries caused by overexertion and cumulative trauma from lifting heavy objects on a regular basis in the course of work. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says employees can greatly reduce their likelihood of suffering from spinal injuries, pulled muscles, and back sprains by using smart lifting practices and utilizing mechanical methods like material handling tugs when moving heavy loads or objects.

When product or equipment must be lifted manually, employees should place the object in the “power zone” area of the body, which is mid-thigh to mid-chest. They should keep their spine straight whenever possible and bend with their knees instead of their waist. Mechanical lifts and material handling tugs should be used for anything weight more than 50 pounds. The work floor should be designed and laid out in such a way to allow clear passage of forklifts and other equipment essential to safely moving heavy loads.

Improve efficiency for your business and reduce the risk of overexertion injuries to your valuable team members by contacting one of our courteous and knowledgeable sales professionals at DJ Products.

Making Maintenance Easier in Hotels and Apartment Complexes

Working as a porter or on the maintenance crew in a hotel or apartment complex can be an excellent job with good pay that never gets boring. Depending upon the environment that you work in, your duties may include everything from snow removal in the Winter and landscaping in the Summer to plumbing, electrical and general contracting. In this line of work there is never a dull moment, but there can be some very stressful and laborious moments if you don’t have the proper equipment on hand to deal with one particularly messy job – trash removal.

Manual trash container removal, especially in complexes that have a large number of apartments, can be a very difficult process. When a wheeled dumpster gets loaded to the brim or contains some bulky items from tenants who are moving out or redecorating can get exceedingly heavy and potentially dangerous to move manually – this can put porters and maintenance crew members at great risk for injury.

In order to make maintenance crew members safer while performing this less than favorable part of their job as well as more efficient, it helps to have a motorized dumpster mover or waste container puller. The trash container movers from DJ Products allow one employee to quickly safely and effectively pull the trash container from even tight quarters and get it stationed where it needs to be for pick up.

Even a completely empty dumpster is heavy enough to pose a risk if employees are attempting to manually move it on their own. With a dumpster mover or trash container puller from DJ Products you can ensure the safety of your maintenance crew and make this task go from the least desirable on the list to one that everyone will volunteer to perform.

Eliminating the Overexertion of Trash Removal

Full dumpsters and trash containers need to be stationed at the right place and at the right time in order to be picked up. This is critical for apartments, condos and retail establishments that accumulate trash quickly because missing a pick up could potentially create a build up of waste and unsanitary conditions. For this reason, employees are often asked to do whatever it takes to get the waste container to its destination, which could potentially compromise safety and put employees and property at risk.

The process of getting the heavy waste container, which may weigh in at a few thousand pounds or more, to its destination could involve employees having to push or pull the dumpster over several hundred feet over rough or hilly terrain. This can be a very dangerous undertaking for one, two or even three employees regardless of the weather, but the high temperatures of the Summer or the ice and snow of the Winter can greatly increase the chance of overexertion and injury.

The battery powered WasteCaddy from DJ Products lets a single employee safely maneuver a fully loaded trash container over any distance and any type of terrain with no worries at all. The very reliable and ergonomically designed waste container mover makes this job that usually requires multiple employees an easy task for just one employee.

Using properly designed equipment to maneuver heavy dumpsters and recycling bins drastically reduces the chances of injuries, while at the same time increasing productivity by allowing the job to be completed by one employee instead of two or three. The job gets done faster, easier and with less of a chance of injury or property damage and this is an optimal situation for both management and the employees.

Freight Solutions for Small and Medium Sized Warehouses

A forklift is a great asset for moving palletized freight or heavy loads from point a to point b in your facility, but not every plant or warehouse that handles heavy loads has the storage capacity or room to maneuver for a forklift to be a viable option. In many of these establishments, employees are manually handling these heavy loads and workers are risking injury every single day in order to perform their job.

You don’t need extra wide aisles in order to operate a powered machine that can move heavy equipment or loads from one end of your warehouse to the other; you can get the same power delivered by a full sized fork truck in the smaller and easier to maneuver CartCaddy4SC powered hand truck from DJ Products.

The CartCaddy4SC allows workers to quickly, safely and easily handle loads up 4,500 pounds in situations where a full sized forklift would be too big a piece of equipment. The CartCaddy4SC can also be an incredible compliment to a full sized forklift in high volume warehouses that require multiple large loads to be handled at the same time but that don’t have the budget, need or space to merit having two forklifts on site.

Just like all of the material handling equipment from DJ Products, this powered hand truck is built with both functionality and safety in mind. This piece of equipment is easy to use, quiet, ergonomically designed and can run for a full eight hour shift with regular use on a single charge.

Your business can operate much more smoothly and safely with the proper equipment for the job and if you need heavy loads moved in tight quarters or need to safely get heavy equipment or stock from one place to another while your forklift is in use elsewhere – your business could certainly benefit from having a powered hand truck on site.

Weighing the Options

Functional equipment operated by quality employees is pretty much the lifeblood of the material handling industry. Unfortunately, with the state of the economy over the course of the last couple years, many warehouses and distribution centers are operating with outdated and broken down equipment that is hampering their employee’s productivity and putting them at risk of injury. Some owners feel that equipment upgrades simply aren’t in the budget, but at the same time they constantly have to pay for costly repairs on the machines that they are using and losing time and money when equipment is down. If all of the repairs and lost income from delays over the course of a year were tallied, odds are that the sum would far outweigh the cost of an equipment upgrade.

Upgrading outdated material handling equipment in favor of the safer, more reliable and more efficient powered carts from DJ Products will have many benefits, both immediate and long term, which will far outweigh the initial one time investment of the purchase.

The material handling equipment from DJ Products is ergonomically designed to be among the safest equipment that your employees can use, this helps to ensure that your employees avoid many of the injuries often associated with manual material handling. You’ll also get unparalleled reliability, with carts that can operate strong for an entire shift on a single charge with no worries at all about failure.

Healthy employees and reliable equipment will dramatically increase your operational productivity, this will allow you do satisfy more customers and do so in a quicker fashion. Equipment that can help to keep your employees healthy and allow you to fulfill customer orders more quickly will pay for itself in no time, regardless of the cost of the initial investment.

Avoiding the Number One Citation from OSHA

According to statistics released in publications for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the number one reason for citations in warehouses across America is the forklift. This makes perfect sense if you consider that more than 100 individuals die each year as a result of forklift related accidents and that nearly 100,000 people are injured in forklift incidents every single year.

If your employees, even ones that have been driving your forklift for a substantial period of time, don’t closely adhere to the proper safety guidelines when driving, they are putting themselves, other employees and your entire operation at risk. Forklifts can be a huge asset to the warehouse and material handling environment, but only if they are used in a consciously safe manner. Many forklifts are also loud and run on combustible fuels, which can add another element of risk to operation and storage.

Though forklifts have many potential benefits, if you run a warehouse or distribution center, there may be safer and easier alternatives to your material handling needs. Battery powered carts from DJ Products create no noise pollution and operate free of combustible fuels – they are powered by a long life battery that can easily handle an entire, fast paced shift on a single charge, making them much more efficient and much less expensive to operate than a traditional forklift.

Keeping your employees safe is integral to running a successful business and the battery powered carts from DJ Products are designed with employee safety in mind. All carts are ergonomically designed to prevent over use injuries and the overall operation is so simple that a single employee can transport heavy loads safely with very little physical effort. This gives your employees the power to perform work as quickly as they could with a forklift, without the potential hazards often associated with forklift operation. By trading in the biggest risk of employee injury for a much safer alternative you can greatly increase your company’s overall productivity while at the same time reducing risks to your valuable employees – that’s a winning situation for everyone.

Tips for Creating a Successful Ergonomics Program

Last time we talked about the financial and production benefits of implementing an ergonomics program (see our Nov. 24 post). A recent study on the bottom-line value of ergonomics showed a $4 savings for every dollar invested. Most businesses that purchase ergonomic equipment recoup their investment costs within the first year. The financial benefits alone make ergonomic equipment a shrewd investment in your future. But forward-thinking businesses that investment in ergonomics understand that they are also making a powerful proactive investment in the health, safety and retention of their workforce.

Creation of a successful ergonomics program requires three important elements, Mike Kind wrote recently in the New Hampshire Business Review:

Support of top management. To be successful, an ergonomics initiative must become part of your corporate culture and be thoroughly embraced and supported by top management. The introduction of an ergonomics program can be an excellent step toward creating a wellness-based focus in your organization, notes Kind.

Other wellness-centered activities include offering wellness training classes, scheduling health screenings and flu shots, providing healthier snacks and beverages in vending machines, sponsoring Weight-Watchers groups, offering gym membership discounts. Employers only stand to gain from sponsoring activities that promote a healthy workforce.

Established goals and measurable results. Any new initiative requires a bit of tweaking once it’s off the launch pad. Particularly in the early weeks of a launch, it’s important to conduct regular workplace assessments of a new ergonomics program to ensure that maximum efficiency and productivity are achieved. Close monitoring of employee complaints, injury reports, medical costs, workers’ compensation claims, absenteeism, lost man-hours and production results will provide the hard data needed to assess the success of your program and make any necessary changes.

Kind adds a word of caution: Don’t be surprised if you find an initial increase in incident reports. As employees learn about ergonomic issues, they are more likely to recognize the symptomatic causes of musculoskeletal complaints and report them. As your ergonomics program progresses and becomes an effective component of corporate culture, incidence reports will decrease significantly.

Next time we’ll discuss the importance of effective education, training and leadership in implementing a comprehensive ergonomics program in your workplace.

Successful Ergonomics Program Requires Strong Leadership

With President-elect Obama and a Democratic Congress poised to enact tough ergonomic standards within the next year, we’ve been discussing the financial, production and personnel benefits of implementing an ergonomic program (see our Nov. 24 & 26 posts). Being proactive in creating a wellness-focused corporate climate will enhance your ability to compete in the future. Implementation of a strong ergonomic plan and a move to ergonomically-designed equipment has been proven to increase production efficiency and decrease healthcare costs.

The success of a comprehensive ergonomics plan is dependant upon the support of top management, the creation of demonstrable goals and measurable results, and, most critically, the provision of effective employee education and training coupled with strong program leadership.

Effective education, training and leadership. Thorough education and onsite training of employees is critical to the success of a new ergonomics program. Education about the features and processes of a new ergonomics initiative must be backed up with onsite training.

As workers become familiar with new features and practice new processes, the provision of adequate onsite supervision is critical. Workers need time to learn new skills and procedures and change long-established habits. Continuous supervision not only reinforces raining, but reveals areas that require adjustment. Ask your employees for input. People who perform the tasks often spot potential problem areas in new procedures and provide keen insight into productive solutions.

In an article published in New Hampshire Business Review, Mike Kind also recommends selecting a “champion” to spearhead a new ergonomics initiative. Designating a person with clear oversight over the program facilitates implementation of the original initiative and subsequent revisions. It creates a clear chain of command easily accessible by both management and workers. It centralizes the dissemination of information and collection of review data, improving analysis quality and speed.

A recognized industry leader in the design and production of ergonomically-designed material handling equipment, DJ Products provides a useful Ergonomic Load Calculator on our website. Created to assist ergonomic and health and safety professionals in designing ergonomic programs, our free calculator estimates the amount of horizontal force necessary to move wheeled loads. By inputting vital data about your specific application, including floor condition, terrain, footing, load weight and transport distance, our Ergonomic Load Calculator calculates the specific needs of a given application.

DJ Products’ ergonomic specialists are also available to assist you in evaluating your ergonomic needs. We’re the experts in finding creative solutions to ergonomic issues in the workplace. Give us a call today and let us help you position your business for the future.

Tag: safety