Warehousing Archives - DJ Products

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:

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.
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.
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.
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.
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?

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.

Material Handling Offers Good Job Growth Potential

Particularly in a tight economy everyone wants to know where the jobs are and where they’re going to be for the next decade or so. Material handling and the related fields of logistics and warehousing are growth industries that offer good job potential now and into the future. International development is predicted to drive 5% annual growth in the worldwide material handling industry for each of the next five years (see our Sept. 22 post). In the U.S. retiring baby boomers are creating critical worker shortages in logistics and warehousing. However, automation and increasingly sophisticated technology are also creating a need for more highly skilled and more highly educated workers.

While the value of experiential education is still recognized, a bachelor’s degree is the new entre into a professional career; and a master’s degree, the ticket to climbing the career ladder, according to Mike Ensby of Clarkson University’s Engineering & Global Operations Management Department. “The three most important credentialing letters today seem to be ‘MBA,'” he said in a recent interview with Modern Materials Handling, particularly if you’re aiming for the boardroom.

Companies do still hire people right out of high school, and many professionals who began their own careers that way seem to place greater value on certified skills than college degrees. But material handling is in a state of transition. Industry experts say the drive to automation and integrated systems will increasingly demand a workforce with advanced technical skills. Tomorrow’s warehouse worker is more apt to operate a computer than a forklift.

In the coming decade, high school grads may find themselves stuck in a career track that rarely rises above skilled labor, such as order fulfillment. “Going into the future, not many people will have much success in their career progression without professional development of some kind,” Ensby said.

Next time: What courses will catapult your material handling career to success? What will employers be looking for?

Increase Productivity and Morale

There are more ways to improve your business than by just raising your prices, heavier margins and a more profitable business can be had through a number of situations – especially when your business involves moving a lot of bulk material. Increasing productivity, speed of processing and developing strong customer relations are even better ways to grow your business than simply arbitrarily increasing prices.

When you have the proper material handling equipment for your staff, you can drastically increase employee productivity. Quotas can be made on a much more regular basis because your employees aren’t struggling through the tasks which they need to complete. Both your shipping and receiving departments can run more smoothly and efficiently with the use of ergonomically designed, powered carts; outgoing shipments can be picked, staged and packed with less physical effort in a much sorter time span and stock shipments can be received and put where they belong with less physical effort and in the shortest time possible. By fulfilling orders quicker and more accurately you can generate customer loyalty, which could also lead to referral business generated from your happy clientele.

You’ll also reap the benefits of happier and healthier employees who can complete their regular work in a timelier and less stressful manner. Employees will feel a heightened sense of accomplishment as a result of performing their job well and workplace moral will increase. Employees who work in positive atmospheres are more likely to have a desire to be successful in their jobs and those who work with proper equipment are less likely to miss time as a result of injury.

Efficiently operating warehouses and rock solid relationships with customers and vendors are what keeps many business afloat during difficult economic times, having the right material handling equipment is a big step toward increasing workplace performance and being able to service the customer in the best way possible.

Reducing Strains, Aches and Pains

The biggest danger in the workplace may not stem from the loudest crash or ugliest fall, though these instances can cause injury they are pretty rare when compared the injuries relating to the use of poorly designed material handling equipment.

Many distribution center managers understand that the use of forklifts and powered carts makes their workers jobs easier, but they fail to realize that easier may not always be safer. In order to prevent overuse and repetitive stress injuries the equipment that your employees are using needs to be ergonomically designed.

All of the battery powered lifts and carts offered by DJ Products are designed to move without putting any undue stress on your employees’ bodies and they also put the material in the best possible position for lifting. This keeps nagging aches and strains, which can ultimately result in the need for time off, to a minimum at the same time as increasing the staff’s overall productivity.

Operating your facility with equipment that forces your employees to strain to get the job done or that puts their bodies in uncomfortable positions while completing everyday tasks puts everyone at risk for injury. This can lead to more absences, lower productivity and higher rates of workman’s compensation claims costing your operation quite a bit of money in the long run. By upgrading to the highly efficient, battery powered equipment from DJ Products you can all but eliminate these risks from your workplace and you can greatly improve the physical portion of the job for your employees.

Outdated equipment can put your employees and your productivity in jeopardy, and though a material handling equipment upgrade will have an initial investment – the benefits of healthy and more productive employees are well worth the cost.

Need Temp Help in Your Warehouse? Who You Gonna’ Call?

Warehouse productivity depends on having a trained staff of people to move your products. Occasionally, temporary help is required to cover shifts or regular full-time employees who are on vacation or illness leave.

In other situations, you may need temporary personnel to store an incoming shipment or send out shipments of your products. You need to use a temporary service that has experienced people available when you need them.

A temp service can also provide people that you may eventually want to hire full-time.

Expertise

The temp staff must be able to quickly learn about your products and how they are used. A car lot using the Car Caddy electric car pusher from DJ Products may need temps who will learn quickly how to use this product when vehicles are delivered. This product will move cars and trucks easily around a lot.

DJ Products also uses temporary help to move products, including the Car Caddy, during extra busy operations.

Safety

Temporary personnel should know all of the warehouse safety precautions including forklift operation requirements. This includes operating powered movers, carts, pullers and retrieving items from top shelves and ledges. They should be familiar with any required safety equipment such as hard hats and vests.

A reliable temp agency will assess the skills and experience of temporary help before they are assigned to a warehouse job.The agency will qualify that the temp is familiar with various movers and other equipment.

Contact DJ Products, manufacturer of a variety of products for warehouses that are easy and safe to use. This includes power movers, tuggers, dumpster movers and other products for industrial use.

Five Important Dock Safety Tips

Warehouse safety begins at the receiving and shipping docks. Safe dock procedures set the stage for the safe unloading, handling and storage of materials as well as the packing, loading and shipping of product. Identifying and addressing ergonomic challenges on the dock can directly impact worker safety and dock productivity. “You have to look at everything from what kind of trailer you’re going to receive, to whether the load is floor-loaded or unitized to what happens to it after it comes off the truck. Even the temperature inside the facility and the weather are important,” explained Brent Tymensky, VP of design engineering for Fortna Inc.

Dock safety begins with attention to five important issues:

Trailer access. The length, width, height and suspension system of a trailer generally determine the dock equipment needed. Other considerations include whether the trailer is dry or refrigerated and whether the load is unitized and fully cubed.
Dock conditions. Temperature and weather impact dock worker safety and efficiency. A canopy that keeps out cold, heat, wind, rain and snow improves working conditions and worker comfort. Air-inflatable dock seals can form a tight barrier around a trailer, keeping out the weather and reducing energy costs.
Personnel issues. The age, experience and physical condition of your workforce are factors that determine how and when automated and manual equipment are used. Adjustable conveyors that reach into a trailer can assist with manual unloading and loading procedures, reducing the physical strain on workers. While some palletized loads can be off-loaded as is, many pallet loads must be broken down manually into their components for use or proper storage. Adjustable carts and tuggers can make this work both easier and safer for dock workers.
Dock safety equipment. Vehicle restraint devices prevent trailers from exiting prematurely while workers are still on the trailer. Restraint devices range from simple wheel chucks to automated systems that bolt into the cement dock and attach to the trailer’s rear guard. A newly marketed interlocking device attaches to the trailer brake emergency airline to prevent the trailer from moving until the dock ramp is removed and the dock door closed.
Productivity and efficiency. Dock levelers, extendable conveyors and palletizing equipment all increase efficiency in retrieving and loading materials and goods. Trailer drop can significantly hinder the transition from the trailer to the dock. Levelers and vehicle restraints that support the rear of the trailer can eliminate trailer drop as equipment is moved into the trailer for loading or unloading.

Education That Will Forward Your Material Handling Career

Material handling offers good growth potential now and for the future. It is also becoming increasingly automated and technical (see our Sept. 29 post). So how can students interested in material handling as a growth career and current workers who want to move up position themselves to be in demand by employers today and into the future?

Industry experts agree that education is the key. While a high school diploma can still get you an entry-level job on the warehouse floor, it will take certified skills to maintain that job as the level of technology accelerates through the material handling, warehousing and logistics industries. Moving up the corporate ladder will increasingly require a bachelor’s degree. If you aspire to a management position, plan on putting in that extra year or two to get your MBA. Some colleges now offer concurrent bachelor/MBA programs and many offer night, weekend and online courses. Executive MBA programs geared to working business professionals provide an accelerated path to a higher degree by recognizing acquired experiential knowledge.

“Going into the future, not many people will have much success in their career progression without professional development of some kind,” warned Mark Ensby, director of Clarkson University’s Engineering & Global Operations Management Department. “The three most important credentialing letters today seem to be ‘MBA.'”

As automation and the global economy drive industry to greater integration, versatility and cross-industry knowledge will be increasingly valued. Students who combine material handling courses with industrial engineering, logistics, supply chain, warehousing, project management and computer systems studies will best position themselves for the future.

Partnerships between industry associations and universities are also expected to increase experiential learning. As it moves toward the future, material handling and associated industrial engineering industries will be looking for graduates with experiential learning, not just theoretical knowledge. “Associations like MHIA are going to play more and more of an important role in leveraging universities as the provider of skilled employees,” predicted Dan Boos, president of consulting firm Gorillas and Gazelles.

Mark Tomlinson, executive director of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, has called for public schools to place greater emphasis on manufacturing as a viable career choice. Industry pressure is expected to increase two-year technical training opportunities in manufacturing, material handling, and industrial engineering fields. Tech schools, some beginning at the high school level, are seen as a quick way of solving the looming worker shortage in these industries. “The challenge is there just isn’t going to be enough of anybody for what’s needed,” Boos said.

“Over their lifetime, many of them (high school grads) will earn more because they started working sooner than those who took four or five years to finish college,” Tomlinson pointed out. “So we’ve got to get away from a good job/bad job mindset and encourage people to get some training.”