Tag: Safety and Ergonomics

Moved Wheeled Equipment Safely with Powered Movers

Have wheels, will travel? This phrase may apply to people with cars but it does not necessarily apply to carts used in industrial and warehouse settings. Sometimes moving even well designed wheeled equipment and machinery is no simple task. This is where a power tugger or cart mover from DJ Products can make a big difference. Our material handling solutions make it possible for one operator to move heavy-duty wheeled equipment with a reduced risk of injury.

With carts that are heavy but don’t seem ridiculously heavy, there is the temptation to go ahead and push or pull it—just get a couple of workers and the job will be done, right? Well, maybe. The job might be done…but your employees may experience damaging muscle strain afterwards.

A DJ Products CartCaddyShorty power tugger is a motorized cart mover manufactured to help transport carts or equipment that require turning and that can typically be pushed or pulled with one or two people. Perhaps if workers pushed or pulled these loads once or twice they’d be okay. But when a few workers repeatedly strain to transport heavy loads at work, this can take its toll on their musculoskeletal system.

Our CartCaddyHD cart mover can be used to maneuver carts or equipment of up to 50,000 pounds forwards or backwards as needed. It has a mover arm that can be used for a variety of carts and equipment so your employees won’t need to spend time trying to fashion different attachments.

Call us at 1-800-686-2651 to talk to a Sales Engineer about these and other material handling solutions for your business.

Safely Move Stalled Vehicles with a Car Pusher

Bigger does not always equal better and you can find surprising strength in small machines. Such is the case with a DJ Products car pusher. You might imagine that you need something as big as or bigger than a vehicle to move that vehicle, but you do not. Check out this video that shows how one person can push a stalled SUV into a garage using our CarCaddy car pusher.

Our CarCaddy car and vehicle pusher is battery operated and designed to push vehicles that have pneumatic tires, such as cars, trucks, campers, and buses. It can push cars and trucks up to 20,000 pounds on flat ground and up to 10,000 pounds on 3% grade. And if that is not enough, you can opt for a Heavy Duty Motor/Transaxle Power Upgrade so you can push cars and trucks that weigh up to 50,000 pounds. You can also opt to add foam filled tires, snow and ice tires, a safety horn or a flashing light.

But for now, during the heat of summer, you and your employees will be glad to have the CarCaddy to help move a stalled vehicle quickly and safely. The CarCaddy can minimize damage to the body (including back and shoulder strain) and lessen the time one has to spend in the sun moving a vehicle. This time of year it is important to lessen the chances of overexertion and heatstroke.

Whether a car or a larger vehicle needs to be pushed off the road, along a highway or across a parking lot into a service center, you can count on the CarCaddy.

Get Powered Carts for Aging Healthcare Workers

As workers get older, the wear and tear of age, combined with a lifetime of labor can contribute to them slowing down. This does not mean that older workers should be cast aside, however. It does mean that employers need to recognize that retaining older workers may require some adjustments.

A Department of Labor newsletter article entitled, “The Aging Workforce: Challenges for the Healthcare Industry Workforce” outlined a growing concern for employers in healthcare and other industries. It said that “By 2050, the U.S. Census predicts that 19.6 million American workers will be 65 years or older, roughly 19 percent of the total U.S. workforce” and that by 2020 almost half of all registered workers will be eligible to retire. Not only will these workers be aging themselves, they will be called on to assist patients who are even older than they are,

In some instances, these workers will stay on the job because of financial need or a desire to remain active. In other cases, employers will want to keep these workers on because of their knowledge and experience. Either way, employers will need to think of ways to make work tasks adaptable to aging physiques.

Providing ergonomic material handling carts such as an electric cart puller or powered cart from out CartCaddy line of products can make a difference. These are our smallest and most maneuverable caddies, designed for lighter loads and areas with lots of pedestrian traffic. These applications usually have a space constraint, and these products tend to look less industrial in nature than some of our more heavy-duty material handling solutions.

Powered Carts Allow You to Consider More Job Candidates

A powered cart is one of the many material handling solutions that DJ Products offers that can help ensure that your employees don’t become injured as they try to transport boxes filled with products or medication, equipment, and other heavy items.

You may have already known that a DJ Products powered cart is can go a long way towards preventing strain and musculoskeletal injuries but did you also know that using our material handling solutions might change your hiring process? The powered cart allows your workforce to be more productive and human resources to be less selective when hiring personnel for a position that may require some physical labor. Instead of passing over a reliable candidate because you imagine that he or she will not be able to handle some of the physical labor required, you can widen your prospects to include people you may not have considered before.

Sometime hiring decisions can be tough: if you have turned down people in the past because you didn’t think they had to physique or have had highly-qualified candidates reconsider accepting a job offer when they find out about some of the physical labor involved, a DJ Products powered cart can change your hiring process. A candidate can’t change her or her physique but you can see to it that a variety of people can do the heavy lifting, even if they can’t do it with just their own strength.

Want to discuss specific applications for our products in your workplace? Call us at 1-800-686-2651 to speak with one of our Sales Engineers.

Material Handing Solutions Make Light Work of Heavy Loads

Investing in material handling solutions is a way to boost morale among current employees and show prospective employees that you are a forward-thinking employer that gives workers what they need to get the job done.

A number of our material handling solutions have been designed so your employees do not injure themselves pushing or pulling loads that seem simple but will really strain them more than they imagine. We also have material handling solutions for loads that are clearly too cumbersome for someone to move using his or her own strength. Although these loads do require mechanical assistance, any old machine will not do. Please call our Sales Engineers at 800-686-2651 for a recommendation on your proper solution.

For example, the CartCaddyHD cart mover chain drive is a heavy-duty battery powered mover designed to push or pull equipment up to 50,000 pounds. It works well on carts with casters or carts on rails that go straight forward or backwards. Also, heavy trailers with lots of tongue weight can easily be lifted and moved with the CartCaddyHD Cart Mover. Check out this video where two people are moving a trailer using two CartCaddyHD Cart Mover chain drives.

We also offer the RiderCaddy battery powered tug so that a worker can push, pull, or maneuver carts and heavy trailers–either sitting or standing to pull the load. Another advantage of the RiderCaddy is that it allows you to consolidate tasks; carts that previously required the effort of more than one person can now be moved using just one person, freeing up the other workers for other tasks.

Reduce Risk of Food Processing Plant Injury with Industrial Tuggers

A study from commercial insurer CNA that examined the risks associated with working in the food processing industry found that “the types of incidents most likely to cause worker injuries are manual material handling and physical stress; struck by and struck against; and falls on the same level.” The report also noted that while the industry has increased its use of power movers, there was still a reliance on manual transport that lead to injuries that may have been prevented.

As the reports also states, “Profitability in the food processing industry depends on the rapid production of final product and its timely shipment to customers. The continuous rapid movement of large amounts of raw materials and finished products throughout the production cycle exposes workers to injuries resulting from contact with moving objects.”

We know that you cannot afford to slow down operations. We also know that you would like to avoid costly worker compensations claims and the loss of productivity and morale that go along with those claims. So, try using a DJ Products powered mover, like the CartCaddyShorty for example.

The CartCaddyShorty can be used to transport a variety of heavy loads, including things like large quantities of cold cuts or a cart full of cookie dough. This small, but powerful tugger is one the most maneuverable tugs you’ll find today.

While you can continue to allow your employees to push heavy carts because they are ‘getting the job done,’ consider that ergonomically designed equipment will still help them complete their tasks with the added benefit of preventing strains and sprains that can harm your staff and your financial outlook.

Resorts and Hotels: Get Motorized Housekeeping Carts for the Demands of Summer Crowds

Summer vacation will soon be here and at this time of year many families are traveling with kids and pets in tow. These guests will certainly keep your staff on its toes…and you don’t want any unsteady carts running over any toes (staff or guest). We offer powered carts for hospitality environments such as resorts and hotels. Keep your operations running efficiently during this buy season with…

A Powered Housekeeping Cart that can get rid of the need for a staff member to push a heavy housekeeping cart using his or her own strength.

A Powered Dirty Linen Cart that will allow a staff member can transport soiled linens safely through hallways without fear of having an overloaded cart full of things that need to be washed spilling.

A Motorized Clean Linen Wire Cart that can help staff quickly replace linens without having clean linens spill out and needing to be rewashed.

Each of our motorized carts has a variable speed twist grips that allows the operator to travel at speeds of 0-3 mph forward or backward. This helps to ensure that they can be operated safely or moved out of the way if necessary. In a packed hotel of resort, staff may not be able to completely avoid customers but you can reduce collisions with energetic children or other staff members when you provide the right kind of equipment. You can also reduce instances of injury and muscle strain because with the demands of summer, your staff will have more to do and you do cannot afford to lose staff members to preventable injuries.

Rely on a Car Pusher Instead of Human Strength

In the Superman movies, the superhero demonstrates his amazing strength: he manages to push a car up in order to free people who would otherwise be trapped. You can also find a number of real-life accounts of people somehow finding the strength to lift a car off of someone in an emergency. That adrenaline rush is useful in emergency situations but there is no guarantee that a person will have that same power on an average day.

This is where a DJ Products car pusher can come in handy because even though having a stalled vehicle is an emergency, you may not find that you are suddenly endowed with great strength to move that vehicle. And if your workplace requires cars be moved (across lots or showrooms) you probably do not want to have employees pushing vehicles themselves since this is can bring on undue physical strain and can damage the vehicles.

Plus, while it may be a common practice to move a stalled vehicle using another vehicle, this can damage both vehicles: they may become dented, scratched, or cracked. In contrast, the front push pad of the CarCaddy car and vehicle pusher is made of a soft, durable, padded material designed to preserve the paint and integrity of the back end of the stalled vehicle while also protecting the car and vehicle pusher.

There are limits to human ability and rather than take a chance, it is better to have the proper material handling solution at the ready so you don’t wind up with a damaged vehicle and injured employees.

Save Money with a Shopping Cart Retriever

We see shopping carts everywhere and think little of them but if you are a retailer who offers them to customers they are one of the many items that you must account for. A DJ Products Shopping Cart Retriever can save you money on to separate fronts:

Reduce Employee Injury
Shopping cart retrievers are great labor-saving devices. Employees that have to round up shopping arts risk possible injury from the physical labor and must deal with weather conditions such as extreme heat and cold, rain, snow and hail. Providing your employees with this mechanical assistance means you lessen the chances that one of them gets injured retrieving carts or calls in sick because of heat exhaustion. And since cart retrieval tends to be the kind of task assigned to new or low-ranking employees, you may not make these employees excited to do this work but you can make this work easier because retaining employees you have trained also saves you money.

Lose Fewer Shopping Carts
The other way that a shopping cart retriever can save you money is pretty simple: The faster you get cart rounded up, the less likely it is that stray carts will be removed from your property. You may lose some carts here and there, but overall you do not want to see a number of your shopping carts either abandoned or being pushed around other parts of town. Retailers have been used to absorbing the loss of shopping carts but you can be proactive and see to it that your carts remain on your property for your customers to use.

Call 800-686-2651 to speak with one of our Sales Engineers about cart retrievers and other material handling solutions.

Increase Efficiency and Safety with a Car Pusher

If you own a car care center or car dealership that offers repairs or then you probably already know that vehicle manufacturers use car pushers to help keep things moving during the assembly process but you may not have considered how a car pusher can be an asset in your business as well.

Streetdirectory.com explained why a car pusher could be a good investment:
“A good car pusher is not very big and it is compact, thus allowing pushing and even pulling wheeled equipment. Such a pusher is a good investment because it allows a business to save workmen hours. Imagine for example working in a car repair center and having to push cars around all day long. Your body will be tired and you will have aching muscles or even worse strained muscles.”

A CarCaddy car pusher from DJ Products makes it much easier to move cars, trucks, buses and even RVs. This makes things so much safer for your employees and your customers as well. Your employees will not feel as strained and even if you don’t allow customers near the work area, your facility will be safer overall because our car pushers can help move vehicles even in tight quarters. Workers who experience muscle strain that does not require them to stop working may be reluctant to speak up but their work will suffer and you want your workers at their best.

Call us at 800-686-2651 to learn more about the CarCaddy and other material handling solutions such as electric carts that can make your workplace more efficient.