Tag: Safety and Ergonomics

A Powered Carpet Dolly Helps Get the Job Done

If your business involves moving large carpets or similar objects that are heavy and cylindrical, you could probably use some help if your employees have been shouldering the burden of moving these things on their own. A power carpet dolly from DJ Products can load and move an object that is up to 1000 pounds. How is this possible? Its unique tilt and power forward action allows this to happen.

The CarpetCaddy powered carpet dolly has a conveyor lip that you can tilt forward to meet the carpet’s edge. The operator can then slowly move the CarpetCaddy forward while at the same time operating the conveyor backwards. The carpet’s weight will level out so that it rests on the CarpetCaddy and is ready to be moved. A similar set of actions in which the operator almost reverses the previous steps will unload the carpet at its desired location.

Notice we mentioned a single “operator” in the previous steps. This powered carpet dolly makes the loading of a carpet roll, a mat, or a rug from a warehouse to the jobsite an effortless job for one person. Traditionally 2 or 3 individuals would be needed to load a heavy carpet roll on their back or on a cart or dolly. This will not only allow installations and other work that involves moving carpet to process faster, it will also reduce the chances that one or more of your employees will get injured transporting carpet. During a typical carpet removal or installation, there are ample instances where someone might twist the wrong muscle, hurt their back or do some other physical damage that would require time to heal.

Use a Trailer Mover to Transport Heavy Items at Trade Shows and Expos

If your company manufactures items like boats or RVs, you probably see a great benefit to participating in trade shows and expos that give interested parties a chance to see your products. Yet, before your salespeople can show off all of the impressive features of a boat or RV that you manufacture, you have to get your products into a convention center or other exhibition hall. And this is where a DJ Products trailer mover can make a difference.

Overextending the body when manually lifting and moving items like trailers from one location to another can cause significant strain. You not only want your merchandise to arrive in good condition; you want your workers to be safe as well. Although a boat, camper or RV travels a short distance to and from your exhibit space, transporting these items even briefly can cause strain. The electric TrailerCaddy trailer mover is a perfect solution.

Our powered trailer movers have lower maintenance costs than typical trailer movers. They are also less bulky than traditional electric trailer pullers, so strain is minimized. However, being less bulky does not mean that our trailer movers are less powerful. Trailer movers like our TrailerCaddy are designed for increased control in tightly confined areas. This is especially useful for maneuvering through busy trade shows and convention centers where workers from other companies are also transporting goods.

If you are interested in seeing just how versatile our trailer movers are, you can inquire about our free demo trial trailer program. Our program allows you to use a trailer mover at your facility on a trial basis before you make a decision about purchasing one. After you fill out the Demo Program Inquiry, a Sales Engineer will get in touch with you to discuss the proper trailer mover solution.

Increase Productivity with Ergonomically-Designed Power Movers

According to the OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Administration) website, “Ergonomics includes restructuring or changing workplace conditions to make the job easier and reducing/stressors that cause cumulative trauma disorders and repetitive motion injuries.”

While some employers may expect employees to find ways to avoid injury on their own (while keeping up with quotas and deadlines), a savvy employer will give employees the necessary equipment to prevent injury. Preventing injury can also prevent the overuse of sick leave for injury-related strain and the dips in morale that can occur when a number of employees are injured.

At DJ Products, we manufacture power movers and motorized cart movers that have been designed to help the human body complete work tasks without undue stress and strain.

Your employees can use our products to:
Maneuver heavy linen carts in hospitals and hotels
Push heavy rolls of paper or fabric
Pull heavy window, glass ,and door carts
Push buses, trailers or cars through trade shows or on assembly lines
Transport dumpsters across parking lots

These are just a few of the ways our products can help your employees transport heavy loads and avoid injury. All of our products are designed with maneuverability, ergonomics, affordability, and productivity in mind. And, with some minor configurations, our products can be adapted for almost every heavy cart pushing or pulling application.

You can call us at 800-686-2651 and one of our Sales Engineers would be happy to help you select the material handling solution that will fit you needs and explore custom applications where our base products match primary criteria.

Ergonomically Designed Tugs Let You Transport Large Equipment

Our material handling solutions are compact, battery powered “walk behind” units that can help people transport heavy loads with control in numerous situations. Whether you have plenty of room in which to maneuver or you need to move something within a tight, difficult space, we may have an electric or motorized cart tug that can help. You would be surprised at how the proper design makes it possible for a little machine to allow you to move something very heavy. The machine does not need to be as big as or larger than the object being moved when it is engineered properly.

Airplanes?
Yes, you can move an airplane with our aircraft tug. And when we say you, we mean that you can complete this task on your own using the power of our aircraft tug.

Vehicles?
Our car pusher and trailer movers can move vehicles and pieces of equipment with that have straight wheels or are on a rail.

Dumpsters?
Most people wouldn’t try to move an airplane, alone but they might consider themselves strong enough to push a dumpster…what they don’t factor in is the strain this can cause. Just because you can do it doesn’t mean that you should do it. A DJ Products dumpster mover can help you avoid unnecessary muscle strain and pain.

At DJ Products, our goal is to provide solutions for material handling solutions that are ergonomically correct, safe, and cost effective. If you are wondering just how one of our products can help you, feel free to call us at 800-686-2651 and talk to one of our Sales Engineers.

Prevent Back Pain with a Power Puller

When your employees pull or tug on carts and dollies that are too heavy the result can be pain, back strain, and a number of other injuries. WebMD categorizes these injuries as:

Sudden (acute) injuries: These kinds of injuries are “sudden and severe” and include things like compressed nerves, ligament and muscle injury, spine fracture and torn or ruptured discs. Although WebMD notes that the “pain from an acute injury usually does not last longer than 6 weeks,” that is quite a long time to be hurting if you need to perform physical labor for work. And it is possible for a worker to become re-injured during that time.

Overuse injuries: With these, an employee may not remember a specific incident such as ‘throwing his/her back out,” but the pain stiffness and muscle spasm are certainly memorable, lasting 4 weeks if there is no treatment.

Material handling solutions such as a DJ Products power puller is an invaluable for preventing the injury and re-injury that can occur when employees strain their backs. Wheeled equipment such as dollies, hand trucks, linen carts, and hospital carts may be overloaded or the weight on them may not be distributed evenly. This is where a CartCaddyLite Shorty power puller comes in handy: it’s designed with enough power to maneuver carts with less than 1500 lbs. through confined environments where tight maneuverability is of a huge concern. You don’t want your employees to injure themselves or end up with tipped over carts.

Contact one of our Sales Engineers at 1-800-686-2651 to learn more about power pullers and our other useful material handling solutions.

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.

Ergonomic Mobile Applications

We recently read about a mobile app that was designed to help improve ergonomics in the workplace. With this app, people can see photos different postures that might lead to injury at work and get information on ways to improve posture as well as learn about exercises they can do at work to reduce injury. This is a great way to increase awareness about the importance of correct posture.

However, before the term “app” was used to refer to programs created for mobile devices, it was part of word “application.” And for some people, a mobile app will not be enough to reduce injury in the workplace but a mobile application that they can use as they complete their work tasks can make all the difference.

A DJ Products Industrial Power Mover can eliminate the strain of manually pulling heavy products, parts carts and wheeled equipment. Our material handling solutions or “mobile apps” can also eliminate bulky, expensive lift trucks.

Our CartCaddy power movers comes in many different shapes and sizes to handle wheeled applications that operate with racks, carts, and casters. They are designed to move with employees so they do not have to overexert themselves to push or pull in ways that can damage the musculoskeletal system.

If you have seen a number of workers who need to go on disability due to injuries that relate to ergonomic issues, isn’t it time to apply a different kind of material handling solution?

Call us at 1-800-686-2651 so we can help you find material handling solutions that fit your workplace.

Ergonomically Correct Powered Movers Decrease Possibility of Injury

Would you prefer that your business spend money to safeguard against injuries or would you prefer to incur the costs and lost productivity that can stem from employee injury?

You cannot prevent employees from being injured off the job, but you can see to it that they have what they need to stay safe at your workplace. DJ Products provides solutions for material handling situations that eliminate the pain and strain of manually pulling and pushing heavy carts or wheeled equipment. Our powered movers and industrial tuggers Southeast Missourian , this fund “which keeps individual businesses from having to pay the injury claims of workers with previous injuries or health conditions who are re-injured on the job, is going broke. ” The additional three percent that Missouri companies add on to their workers’ compensation insurance has not been sufficient to keep the fund going. Although groups that represent employers in that state are trying to find ways to keep the fund going, there are no guarantees.

Whether or not you are required to pay into a second injury fund, you can take a more preventative approach to worker injury. Investing in ergonomically correct powered movers and industrial tuggers could reduce the chances that your workers will become injured and file for workers’ compensation.

GM Uses a Hologram to Examine Ergonomic Issues

General Motors has a global manager for ergonomics and The Journal Gazette of Fort Wayne recently published and article stating that General Motors will spend $275 million in its state to build newer versions of some of its most popular vehicles. They added the interesting fact that “GM uses a three-dimensional hologram of an average worker to evaluate whether certain tasks in the assembly process are too demanding.”

You may not have global operations or one person in charge of ergonomics as GM does but you will likely need to consider some of the same questions that GM does.

• How far do your operators need to reach to perform work tasks?
• Can we afford to spend money to hire and train new workers if current employees suffer injuries?
• What would be the average cost of a worker’s compensation claim for our company? How will that affect our financial outlook?
• How can we make sure that our workers stay safe as they age?

Here at DJ Products, Inc. we specialize in finding electric or motorized cart tug solutions that either:
• Eliminate the strains and pains of manually pushing or pulling heavy carts, equipment, or materials.
• Are less costly, smaller, and more maneuverable then traditional electric equipment used for moving carts and equipment; like forktrucks, walkies, or motorized riding tugs.

You do not have to sacrifice your employee’s wellbeing to make your products or meet quotas. There are ergonomic material handling solutions that can get the job done. Call us at 800-686-2651 and a Sales Engineer will help you pinpoint the right application for you.

Move Waste Out of Sight Safely with a Waste Container Puller

Municipalities across the nation are examining and changing laws with regard to waste containers and recycling. For example, the Daily Iowan recently announced, “the Iowa City City Council will consider an ordinance that would require was containers to be stored out of public view.” We can’t say exactly how that law will affect businesses or apartment buildings if the council does indeed decide to make this a new law but we can imagine that a place that stored waste containers where they can be seen may need to have these containers moved back and forth for collection.

You can get ahead of the curve and anticipate the need to move waste containers more frequently when you get DJ Product’s WasteCaddyLite waste container puller. Even if your area does not require that your move waste containers out of sight, you may want to get a waste container puller because it will lessen that chances that one of your employees will get injured transporting waste from one location to another.

If your employees have been transporting these kinds of containers on their own, you should know that pushing heavy containers greatly increases the risk of employee injury. A DJ Product’s WasteCaddyLite container puller can reduce injuries arising from accidents and from overexertion. It can also make a three or four person job into a one-person job saving labor costs.

And lest you think that getting a WasteCaddyLite means storing something that is as big as an actual waste container, you should know that WasteCaddyLite waste puller has a compact, ergonomic design. Check out this video to see the WasteCaddyLite in action!