Tag: Warehousing

Our Predicted 2023 Warehouse and Distribution Center Trends

Trailer Dolly
The Future of Warehousing

Warehouses and distribution centers are heading into 2023 with many opportunities and challenges. Safety improvements are always important, making the use of trailer dolly solutions an ongoing trend. From supply chain and inventory solutions to increased interest in the use of automation, these are some of the other top trends in the warehouse and distribution industry for the new year.

Electric Delivery Vehicles

More companies are looking into using electric delivery vehicles to help cut down on pollution, noise, and costs. This involves the use of smaller vehicles, such as vans and small trucks, rather than box trucks. The use of these smaller vehicles is more practical in some areas, while also offering a way to reduce environmental damage.

Autonomous Lift and Reach Trucks

The use of forklifts in warehouses and distribution centers comes with a risk of injuries. Businesses are exploring the possibility of using autonomous lift and reach trucks to improve safety and efficiency. These trucks can make it easier to move items around with a lower risk of worker injuries.

Neighborhood Distribution Centers

Real estate costs and limited inventory on the market are pushing business owners to find other solutions for storing products. Some are turning to neighborhood distribution centers or mini-warehouses for storing goods. These localized distribution centers and warehouses could help make up for a lack of larger warehouse space.

Automation

With the rise in eCommerce, warehouse and distribution center owners are showing a growing interest in adopting automation. The use of automation can offer a solution to the problems the industry faces due to supply chain issues, labor shortages, and rising costs.

Supply and Inventory Solutions

With the supply chain improving in some areas, companies are looking into solutions for managing inventory more efficiently. Some companies face shortages of certain products, while others are dealing with too much inventory. Solutions might involve reducing prices on overstocked items or finding ways to obtain low inventory items.

If you’re looking into solutions for moving large vehicles safely in warehouses, hangars, or other facilities, please contact DJ Products. We offer trailer dolly solutions that make it much safer to pull or push large vehicles and other items.

Part 4: Why Businesses Fail

Financial experts seem to be teetering on the verge of labeling the country’s current economic situation a recession. It’s a label the government seems loathe to use, believing it will wreak further havoc on the stock market and send the economy spiraling down even further. No matter what you call it, things are difficult and it looks like they’re going to stay that way for a while. The economy is slow, credit is tight, fuel is high and bankruptcies are up. For many companies, the combination has delivered a knockout punch and they’re down for the count.

Last week we started a series on Why Businesses Fail (see our July 14-18 posts). We figure it’s better to learn from the mistakes of others than repeat them yourselves. This week we continue our list of the most likely reasons businesses fail:

  • Inappropriate inventory. You can’t sell what customers don’t want. Too much or the wrong inventory causes cash flow problems, wastes sales time and drains profits. By constantly tracking individual inventory items, you can make adjustments and effectively manage product flow on a weekly and monthly basis. Don’t make the mistake of relying strictly on accounting summaries to track inventory. Accounting tracks inventory by dollars, lumping moving and non-moving inventory into an average. To adequately control inventory, you need to track the actual physical items.
  • Excessive capital investments. Americans seem to equate success with things. Bigger cars, bigger houses, the latest gadgetry. In business there can be a tendency to buy newer, bigger, more expensive tools and equipment as a mark of success. But success in business is really based on the quality of the product or service you produce. That’s what drives sales and repeat business. Equipment purchases should relate to your ability to improve or maintain the quality of your product. Certainly, you need to update equipment as technology changes to be competitive. And often the expense of new technology can be recouped in short order by savings in energy, floor space or worker health and safety. But capital equipment purchases should always be evaluated for their ability to enhance the production of a quality product. 


If you’re looking for a cost-saving solution for your capital equipment investment, turn to the material handling experts at DJ Products. At DJ Products we manufacture ergonomically designed electric carts and motorized cart pushers for business, industry and service providers like hospitals. Our products are smaller and more maneuverable than traditional powered equipment like fork trucks, walkies and riding tugs, yet are capable of moving the same sized loads with ease. A smart capital investment, our products are less costly than purchasing traditional powered equipment. Because our carts, tugs and equipment movers are ergonomically designed, you’ll also realize an attractive savings in worker health and safety costs, including medical bills, insurance payments, workers’ compensation and lost man-hours. Visit the DJ Products website to check out our full line of ergonomically designed electric and motorized carts.


To be continued

More Tips to Improve Warehouse Efficiency

Continuing our Monday post, today we provide more tips to ramp up warehouse efficiency by improving material handling processes in distribution centers. In a recent Supply Demand Chain article, TriFactor systems engineer Greg Tuohy offered these suggestions:

  1. Re-evaluate pick tech. Eliminate paper-based picking in favor of auto-enhanced technology. Implementing radio frequency (RF), pick-to-voice or pick-to-light technology can make your operation more efficient. Evaluate the density of SKU locations, throughput, product characteristics and specialized procedures such as serial number tracking to determine the pick technology best suited to your operation, Tuohy advises.
  2. Evaluate pick method. Decide which picking method is most cost effective for your operation. Piece picking where the picker walks the aisles picking and completing one order at a time is the most time-consuming and, therefore, most costly. Small, maneuverable powered tugs can facilitate far more efficient batch picking where all orders are picked simultaneously in a single pass. Dolly pullers and electric tugs can also be used to streamline operations that use assembly-line style zone and wave picking. Powered carts and tugs help streamline your operation by increasing the speed and volume of work that can be accomplished by each worker.
  3. Multi-task. Practice task interleaving which combines picking with the put-away process, Tuohy suggests. Interleaving ensures that operators and equipment are always tasked, that time and energy are not wasted on empty loads. The idea is to create a continuous loop where equipment is always loaded, bringing materials to pick locations and returning empty pallets or delivering picked product to shipping locations.
  4. Minimize downtime. Equipment requires planned maintenance. A proactive maintenance plan will minimize downtime and save time and money. Planned maintenance should be conducted on equipment and automated systems on a regular schedule. Correct small problems immediately and keep frequently needed spare parts on hand.
  5. Protect power supply. Assess the vulnerability of your power supply. Lightning strikes, power outages and power spikes can wreak havoc with distribution systems, says Tuohy. Work with your local electric company to install surge protectors and other recommended protections. Battery-powered carts and tugs with enough juice to work through an entire shift can be the lifeline that keeps your operations moving when Mother Nature throws a fit.

Should You Hire Temporary Staff at Your Warehouse?

Should One Hire Temporary Staff?
Should One Hire Temporary Staff?

Of course, ultimately, a question like this can only be answered by the management staff at any warehouse, but consider these warehouse management tips when it comes to hiring on a staffer.

  • When compared to permanent employees, staffers have an overall productivity and effectiveness of 99.8%. That figure essentially means there is no difference in how a staffer performs than a regular employee.
  • Most staffing services offer their own insurance and benefit packages, and that keeps overhead lower when you hire a staffer than when you hire on a full/part time employee.
  • The best staffing companies routinely do pre-employment testing for drug use, honesty and health. When your staffer comes to work on that first day, you’ll know they are ready to go.
  • For seasonal work, which overloads your regular employees, a staffing service can’t be beat.

Try Before You Hire

Perhaps the best reason for a staffing service is searching for a new employee. Contract a staffing service for a worker, see their performance and their interaction with other employees, then make a decision on permanent employment. If that particular staffer doesn’t work out, you can terminate their contract through the staffing service, with essentially no hassle in doing so, which may be one of the best warehouse management tips you can have.

The Bottom Line

Yes, there may be some downsides in hiring a staffer, like overall employment cost and possible union pressure, but in virtually all situations, the question of whether or not to hire from a staffing service should be a resounding “yes!”

For more information, check out our blog at DJ Products, Inc.

SJF Material Handling Checks In

We were delighted to hear from one of our Minnesota brethren this week. Kent Powell of SJF Material Handling, Inc. in Winsted, Minnesota, just a couple of hours down the road from our home office in Little Falls, ran across our blog and dropped us a line.

SJF is a material handling equipment supplier and consultant. For more than 25 years, they’ve been providing new and used material handling equipment from their Minnesota base. Their Genesys division designs and engineers cutting-edge material handling and distribution systems. Services include customized consulting, layout/design, engineering and control programming services for warehousing and distribution-based industries.

You’ll find the SJF Material Handling Blog an interesting read and will want to add it to your list of “favorites.” Their blog focuses in large part on the steel market that provides the raw material for the conveyors, pallets, carousels, rack and other material handling products they sell. It provides readers with another level of insight into the issues that concern our industry today.

DJ Products manufactures ergonomic electric cart pullers and motorized cart pushers for the manufacturing, distribution, warehousing, logistics, automotive, healthcare, hospitality and retail industries. We specialize in ergonomic material handling solutions that eliminate the strain and resultant injury that occurs from manually pushing or pulling carts and wheeled equipment. We’re one interesting cog in the larger material handling wheel, as is SJF Material Handling. We know there are others out there and we want to hear from you.

We invite our readers and others who share our interest in material handling and its applicable industries to share your comments. Alert us to other interesting websites and blogs that we can share with our readers. Drop us a comment if you read an interesting blog post. Share your own experiences or concerns or let us know what you’d like to hear more about. Our goal in creating the DJ Products blog is to share news, information and insights about material handling. We’d love to hear from you. Drop us a line.

Keeping Up with the Trends

The world of business, and subsequently warehousing and material handling, is ever changing.  To be successful you must adapt as your customer needs change and there is never a more serious time to serve your customer as a time where the economy is suffering.  If you can’t provide the service that your customer needs, you better believe that he or she will find someone that can in an effort to serve their customer and keep their doors open.

Recent trends have shown that some businesses are being forced by the economy to move into smaller properties in an effort to cut overhead and continue operating.  Some of these businesses will require their suppliers to change from a customary “pick and pack” type supplier to someone who is willing to store materials until they are needed.

Warehouses and distribution centers who are asked to provide this service to their customers need, more than ever before, to be properly organized and capable of staging and shipping orders quickly and accurately once an order is received from their customer.  Direct shipments to end users may be necessary and the overall volume of shipments may increase causing the environment to become faster paced and more hectic.

The need for accurate and properly stocked inventories becomes crucial in this type of environment; because there is no time for error when direct or expedited shipments are required.  One way to ensure that your workers can both accurately receive and store materials and to ensure that material can be pulled and staged for priority shipments quickly is to have the proper material handling equipment available for use.

The ergonomic, battery powered carts and scissor lifts from DJ products operate quickly, cleanly and quietly for an entire shift on a single charge, allowing your employees to focus on the accuracy necessary for pulling and receiving orders rather than on the back breaking labor of manual material handling.  In order to become and stay successful your team needs to be fast, accurate and efficient and one of the best ways to achieve that level of performance is to operate with the best possible equipment.

Eliminating Overhead the Smart Way

The economy is still lagging far behind what it was a few years ago and though some industries are beginning to see some promise, logistics and third party warehouses are still struggling to stay out of the red.  In order to keep the doors open, many businesses are being forced to find a way to cut overhead because the customers just don’t have money to spend.

Many businesses are moving to smaller facilities, cutting down the inventory they stock and even cutting employees just to lower spending enough to remain profitable.  If you slash inventory, move to a smaller facility or cut employees you could be hurting your company’s ability to provide adequate service, but there is a way that you can spend less money while at the same time improving your ability to serve the customer.

Propane powered equipment may seem like the most convenient and efficient way to move material, but when you calculate the cost of fuel and tally up the frequent maintenance and repair costs you’ll see that quite a bit of your budget is being spent on this equipment that is supposed to be saving your company money.  A much more economic way to move material is with battery operated carts and lifts.

The lifts and carts offered by DJ Products are quiet, efficient and incredibly reliable and the cost of operation is far less than that of a propane powered forklift.  A single employee can easily maneuver around tight spaces with heavy loads of inventory and not ever have to worry about wasting time changing an empty fuel tank – the lifts and carts from DJ can last an entire shift on a single charge.

You don’t need to sacrifice the quality of your service, your capacity to store product or your number of employees to get back into the green – you may be to be able to cut costs and provide better service by running your operation with the right equipment.

Implementing a Forklift-Free Program

Forklift trucks are expensive to maintain and are a significant source of worker injuries and even deaths each year. The high cost of using forklifts in manufacturing, warehousing and logistics environments is pushing an increasing number of businesses to go forklift-free (see our June 11 post). Going forklift-free can reduce inventory and equipment needs, improve material flow and customer response, increase cycle efficiency and overall productivity, and decrease operating costs. At the same time a forklift-free work environment significantly improves plant safety; decreases liability concerns; and markedly decreases worker injuries and associated medical, insurance, disability and lost man-hour costs.

Implementing a forklift-free program can be challenging and will require a coordinated effort by top-level management, all affected departments, and suppliers, say John Neuman and Larry Tyler in American Machinist. They emphasize that success will require the ability to maintain “a big picture overview of the project as well as an understanding of how each department and suppliers, both internal and external, will be impacted.”

A successful transition to a forklift-free environment begins with a clarification of plan targets and goals and the identification of waste, ergonomic and safety threats. Neuman and Tyler suggest beginning by asking how operations and your supply chain will be impacted by a forklift-free system. Typical project leaders include manufacturing and industrial engineers and material logistics personnel. Input should be gathered from safety teams, production managers, line operators, tug drivers, market supply teams, your purchasing department and suppliers. Good communication, efficient information coordination, and clear assignment of responsibilities are important to success at this stage of the project, warn Neuman and Tyler.

Performing a trial run that physically traces each step of operation from the supplier to the receiving dock through assembly and back to the shipping dock allows the implementation team to uncover any potential problems before initiation. Role playing allows each individual who will participate in the new process to experience and try out the actual movements they will need to undertake in a forklift-free production. The suggestions gained from a physical dry run can provide valuable insight into operational, personnel and supplier issues that must be addressed before full implementation of a forklift-free system.

Obviously, implementing a forklift-free environment in an existing plant presents a significantly greater challenge than in a new or remodeled facility where changes can be incorporated in the planning phase. Neuman and Tyler warn that “existing plant constraints may make the best forklift-free strategy less than optimal.” Aisle widths, conveyor heights, set backs, line space, ceiling height and floor quality are among the challenges that may need to be overcome. Incremental conversion beginning with one or two work cells or a common assembly area may allow for greater success in brownfield operations. Despite the added challenges, positive results can be achieved in brownfield operations though initial cost and implementation time may be somewhat greater.

Products to Help Your Business Go Forklift-Free

There’s a growing trend, particularly in manufacturing, warehousing and logistics environments to go forklift-free (see our June 11 & 13 posts). An increasing number of businesses are choosing to replace forklift trucks with safer, ergonomic material handling products that are cheaper to own and operate. As we noted, going forklift-free can result in considerable savings in production and maintenance costs while significantly decreasing worker accidents and injuries and their associated medical, insurance, workman’s compensation and lost man-hour expenses. DJ Products can help your business transition to a safer forklift-free work environment.

At DJ Products we manufacture a full line of electric cart pullers and motorized cart pushers and tugs. Our products are ergonomically designed to eliminate the pain and strain of manually pushing and pulling heavy carts and wheeled equipment. Smaller and more maneuverable than traditional equipment like forklift trucks, walkies and riding tugs, you’ll also find our products to be less costly to purchase and maintain. Implementing forklift-free solutions with DJ Products equipment offers multiple benefits, including:

  • Decreased operating costs, particularly equipment purchase and maintenance costs,
  • Decreased floor space needed to maneuver equipment,
  • Decreased worker injuries and attendant medical, insurance, workman’s compensation and lost man-hour costs,
  • Decreased liability,
  • Increased plant safety, 
  • Increased worker morale, and
  • Increased efficiency and productivity. 

DJ Products can help you plan your transition to a forklift-free environment. We specialize in solving ergonomic material handling applications with battery-powered, walk-behind tug and tugger solutions. Many of our motorized cart products can be custom configured for adaptation to almost every heavy cart pushing or pulling application. Click here to request a free brochure or video about DJ Products’ ergonomic solutions. We also offer a free demo trial program so you can try out a CartCaddy cart pusher at your facility before purchase. Our expert Sales Engineers can discuss the details of your particular application and suggest ergonomic products that will provide the appropriate solution. Click here to contact a DJ Products Sales Engineer and begin your transition to a safe, cost effective, forklift-free work environment today.

U.S. Manufacturers Turn to ‘Insourcing’ to Save Money

Insourcing is the new buzzword in U.S. manufacturing circles. U.S. economic woes are causing many manufacturers to replace outsourcing with insourcing, an unexpected boon for American workers. The declining value of the dollar against foreign currencies, skyrocketing transportation costs caused by high fuel prices, and decreasing export demand resulting from the global economic downturn are making it more cost efficient for U.S. manufacturers to produce their products at home.

The same economic forces that sent U.S. jobs overseas are now bringing them home. Manufacturing costs in Alabama are currently running 3% below those in China, causing companies like Exxel Outdoors, Inc., which makes sleeping bags for Wal-Mart and other customers, to execute an “about face” on its production priorities. Since the Wall Street tumble, the company has hired more workers, added new equipment and beefed-up production at its Haleyville, Alabama plant, while cutting production at a joint venture in Shanghai. In 2007, 60% of Exxel’s bags were made in Shanghai. This year, the company will make more product at home than abroad and expects to produce 90% of their product at their Alabama facility by 2010.

Exxel founder and CEO Harry Kazazian is predicting a 20% increase in company revenue this year to $42 million. He credits insourcing as a major factor in his company’s success during a tight economy. Since 2005, he has seen the yuan appreciate 17% against the dollar, pushing up Chinese wages, material costs and freight costs. Kazazian says moving production from Shanghai back to Exxel’s Alabama plant just made financial sense.

“Labor is China’s advantage and our weakest link,” he said. “But they can’t compete with me on my just-in-time” production cycle. Exxel can deliver a sleeping bag from its Alabama facility within three days where shipping from China can take two months.

According to government statistics, U.S. manufacturing is contracting at the fastest rate since 2001, the last time America dipped into a recession. As countries around the globe struggle with the growing financial crisis, there has been a marked decrease in export demand. Without demand for the prodigious output that originally spurred outsourcing over the last decade, producing goods in the U.S. is becoming increasingly cost efficient. Smart companies are re-evaluating their outsourcing policies and making the switch to insourcing.