Tag: Warehousing

How to Increase Pick & Pack Efficiency

With costs up and profits down, everyone is scrambling to improve efficiency. No matter what business you’re in, you’re trying to do the job faster and better — often with fewer people. Warehouses, fulfillment houses and distribution centers are particularly challenged, says Bill Hubacek of FKI Logistex North America in a recent article in Manufacturing & Technology eJournal. “Customers demand nearly 100% order accuracy; smaller and more frequent orders cover a greater number of SKUs; and senior management calls for lower costs and increased productivity.”

High volumes from more frequent orders and quick order-to-ship turn-arounds can place a significant strain on your system and your workers. As Hubacek points out, “picking and packing functions remain two of the most labor-intensive and costly jobs in the operation. When performed manually, picking and packing can be a major source of errors, expense and decreased efficiency.”

And a reputation for errors is definitely something you want to avoid. Errors erode consumer confidence and create a negative drain on customer loyalty. When the economy is tight, competition becomes even more fierce than usual. A reputation for order accuracy can ensure a high rate of customer satisfaction and garner valued customer loyalty. Anything you do to improve your workers’ ability to perform accurately while picking, packing and shipping orders is essential.  

Hubacek makes a good argument for automating pick and pack operations, but most businesses are putting off that type of major retooling and restructuring effort until the economy improves. However, you don’t have to make a massive investment in automation to significantly improve productivity. Augmenting your workforce with a few ergonomically-designed powered carts or movers can improve the overall efficiency of your pick-pack-ship operation, increasing both speed and accuracy — and, ultimately, customer satisfaction.

DJ Products makes a full line of extremely versatile, highly maneuverable electric battery-powered movers designed to perform pushing, pulling and lifting tasks. Ergonomically designed to eliminate musculoskeletal injuries, DJ Products’ carts, tugs and movers take the physical burden of many pick-pack-ship tasks off your workers, allowing them to perform more efficiently. When not physically stressed, workers are able to perform tasks more quickly, concentrating on accuracy rather than the physical discomfort of the task. DJ Products’ powered movers allow you to add “mini-automation zones” to your warehousing, distribution or fulfillment process. And due to their versatility, DJ Products’ ergonomically-designed carts and movers can move with workers from one task to another or can be tasked to different key areas as needed.

Talk to one of our industry specialists to find out how DJ Products’ movers can improve your company’s efficiency — at a price you can afford.

Using CartCaddy Products to Meet Customer Requirements

In our last post we talked about automation and how it is changing the face of the warehousing and distribution industries (see our Aug. 4 post). Automation allows businesses to handle greater volumes in shorter time periods. However, a major challenge in automating operations is the accommodation of unique customer requirements. Obtaining a customer’s business can depend upon your ability to meet their unique requirements. Doing so while maintaining a cost-effective operation can require both ingenuity and skillful management of material handling resources.

Tom Kozenski, VP of product strategy for optimization firm RedPrairie, suggested in a July 2008 Modern Materials Handling article that there are two ways to handle customer requirements: increase labor or engineer them into the normal workflow. “The first brings your operations to a grinding halt,” Kozenski said, citing the extreme cost. “The second allows you to differentiate your business from the competition.”

One way of engineering customer requirements into the workflow is to coordinate the delivery of components or raw materials to the production or assembly line with their use, Kozenski noted. Delivering materials to the assembly line in the same sequence that they will be used increases efficiency and production and, thereby, cost effectiveness. A combination of powered CartCaddies and pushers allows for maximum customization of this process.

On an assembly or production line, electric CartCaddy power tugs can be used to push or pull carts loaded with customer’s specific components or raw materials. Carts can be preloaded and delivered to the line in sequence. In a vehicle assembly plant, for example, CartCaddy power tugs can be used to deliver windows, doors and other components to the appropriate point on the assembly line for sequenced installation. In a fulfillment operation, batched orders can be carted and delivered for sequenced processing. Highly maneuverable, ergonomically designed CartCaddy products maximize the load a worker can move safely, thereby limiting the number of workers involved in material delivery.

The CartCaddy electric tug or CarCaddy vehicle pusher can then move carts, equipment or vehicles from station to station down the line. CartCaddy products are available to move equipment across the floor on wheeled tugs or on a rail. 

Diversification and the Willingness to Grow

Stocking distributors and manufacturer’s representatives are finding themselves in a position where they have to play the roll of the chameleon, constantly changing to meet their customer’s needs in the ever changing construction environment.

When you are in a field where the products are constantly evolving to meet the end users unique needs it’s difficult enough to try and keep up with the trends, but when the ravaged economy is wreaking havoc with your and your competitors’ businesses you need to truly be the most versatile business you can be in order to remain successful.

Your closet competition may be forced to close its doors, which could open up an area of the market that you were previously unable to service – but in order to attack and hold onto that business you may need to add new product without losing a step in terms of serving your customer.

This type of rapid fire adaptability requires you to have the most reliable and easiest to use equipment in order to be able to receive and fill orders at the rate necessary to meet existing and new customer needs.  You can’t have your employees fumbling with outdated machinery that is prone to failure, or with manually moving thousands of pounds of product due to the fact that there is no fuel in your lift or charge left in its battery.

DJ Products offers battery operated lifts and carts that are designed to meet the demands of the fast paced atmosphere of material handling.  These lifts and carts are among the safest, most reliable and most versatile available – each ergonomically designed to not only get the job done, but to keep your employees safe while they are doing it.

Whether you are feeling pressure from an influx of new product and new customers or just trying better your business status enough to not become a statistic, the right equipment for the job is necessary to exceed your previous level of productivity.

Avoid Warehouse Injuries with Power Tuggers

If you have employees that work in a warehouse, you are probably well aware that often warehouses end up with very little profit margin. A large number of products must be moved for a business to profit. At the same time, each movement an employee makes in a warehouse setting subjects him or her to injury. Employees have to make many movements, including the kind of repeated movements that lend themselves to injury. Having even a few employees missing because they are injured get gets in the way of productivity.
When you have a number of employees who are needed to move a lot of items and such repeated movements can lead to injuries that threaten to decrease productivity and profit margins, you need to find ways to ensure that your employees avoid injury.

Industrial power pullers can help your employees complete their work and minimize stress and strain. Our smaller material handling solutions like the CartCaddyShorty can push or pull carts up to 3,000 points, while larger CartCaddy cart movers can push or pull loads of up to 50,000 pounds.

These carts can carry a variety of items, such as a bin full of washers, a flat bed of steel, or a cart full of cookie dough. Regardless of the parts or equipment being pulled or pushed, our battery-powered tuggers have the power to push or pull almost any heavy cart.

In addition to helping employees complete this work safely, our power tuggers are also good for overall productivity. A single employee can now negotiate heavy carts, which previously had required multiple operators to maneuver.

Recession Leads to Survival of the Fittest

It’s Darwin’s principle of natural selection in action. In a poor economy, only the strong survive. A recession “always hits manufacturing first and hardest,” Hank Cox of the National Association of Manufacturers recently told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. According to the Associated Press, in December, “manufacturing activity sank to its lowest point in 28 years,” with indexes falling farther than expected. Some index components, including new orders, fell to historic lows not seen since the 1948-49 recession. Overall, the manufacturing index, which has been steadily declining over the past six months, reached its lowest reading since June 1980, the tail-end of the last major recession.

Major players from Dow Chemical to Ford Motor Co. to Anheuser Busch are chopping jobs and shutting down factories in an attempt to stop the financial hemorrhaging, but it may not be enough. With the global economy in a tailspin, manufacturers can’t rely on exports to save them from disaster. And when the big guys are flailing, you can bet small businesses are being hammered. From manufacturing to retail and everywhere in between, the economy is taking a toll on American businesses. No sector of the economy is proving to be recession proof. No one reported growth in December and most sectors of the economy reported declines in everything from new orders to production, employment and prices. Weak companies are going to fail. It’s survival of the fittest, but those companies that do survive the recession are predicted to emerge far stronger than before and in an arena with less competition. To make the cut, you’ll need to roll with the punches and be proactive about the changes that are coming.

The floundering economy and growing jobs crisis has given the incoming Obama administration a popular mandate to change America (see our previous two posts). Industry experts tell us to expect increased government oversight and regulation. Public backlash from the highhanded attitude of financial institutions that refused to disclose how they spent bailout money has assured that future government help will come with lots of strings attached. Add to that President-elect Obama’s campaign pledge to American workers to improve workplace safety and his pledge to the public to increase environmental protection, and American businesses should be girding for a new era of more invasive government regulation.

There are always two ways to handle change. You can rail and fight against it, or you can embrace it and use it to position yourself ahead of the competition. Time and again, history proves that those who look to the future and embrace change survive. As competition increases, the companies that are proactive about incorporating new technology, new equipment and new processes into their operations are the ones that will rise above their competition and live to see a better tomorrow.

Next time: How DJ Products can help you be a survivor.

Process Automation Key to Logistics Success

For logistics providers competing in a tight economy, process automation is an essential strategy. A MarketInsight study just released by Hubspan, Inc. surveyed more than 200 North American logistics companies with annual revenue between $30 million and $10 billion. Process automation to streamline shared processes, achieve operational efficiency and improve collaboration between customers, carriers and distributors were identified as the most critical challenges facing the logistics industry today.

“The logistics industry recorded strong growth over the past decade due to globalization and an increased demand for imported goods,” said Robert Pease, Vice President of marketing for Hubspan. “However, the industry shifted in early 2008 due to a slowing economy, rising fuel costs and a shortage of qualified personnel. This shift drives the need for logistics companies to apply efficiencies that automate processes and streamline operations to overcome current economic hurdles.”

Incompatible systems and difficulties in integrating systems were cited as the greatest challenge by a majority of survey respondents. “In an industry driven by efficiency, it is surprising that so few logistics providers are able to resolve core integration issues that impact on-time performance, process automation and customer service,” Pease said. “Increasing process automation and system compatibility illustrate two key opportunities for logistics providers looking to outperform the competition and thrive in today’s tough economic environment.”

Utilizing ergonomically designed powered carts and tugs to replace the manual transport of materials and products is one way logistics companies can increase automation and improve production efficiency. With the logistics industry facing a shortage of workers, ergonomic material handling solutions allow each worker to efficiently accomplish a greater workload while dramatically decreasing potential risk of injury. Replacing expensive, high-maintenance, fuel-guzzling forklifts and gas/diesel-powered equipment, with less costly, more maneuverable, electric-powered carts and tugs can result in a considerable savings in high fuel costs. These smaller, more maneuverable carts also provide more versatile solutions to material handling problems. For more information on ergonomic solutions to material handling problems, visit the DJ Products website.

New Retrofit Cart Kit Removes Strain From Common Tasks

DJ Products has introduced a revolutionary new motorized retrofit cart kit that takes the pain and strain out of common tasks performed by many workers in a broad section of U.S. jobs. Designed to be mounted to almost any cart, this new retrofit kit can increase usefulness, flexibility, efficiency and worker safety in a wide variety of environments, including applications in hospitality and resort, hospital and healthcare, food service, retail, distribution and warehousing, vending, casino, banking and a host of other industries.

Designed to enhance and improve the capacity and flexibility of your cart investment, DJ Products’ retrofit cart kit is ergonomically designed and motorized to eliminate the musculoskeletal strain placed on workers when manually maneuvering heavy carts through the work environment. As America’s workforce ages, the risk of bodily injury increases as workers struggle to push and pull heavy carts from place to place and into position for use. Particularly common are back and muscle injuries that usually require expensive, long-term treatment and account for considerable lost man-hours.  A single back injury can cost a business $26,000 in time lost.

Employers who have installed DJ Products’ retrofit powered cart kit on their carts have reported a significant decreased in work-related injuries and employee turnover. Hand-in-hand has come improvement in employee efficiency and productivity. Employees have also expressed increased satisfaction with their jobs, a common phenomenon when employers act in their workers’ best interest to safeguard health and safety.

Able to power carts up to 4,000 pounds, DJ Products’ motorized retrofit cart kit is equipped with ergonomically-designed, variable-speed twist grips that allow forward and backward motion at speeds up to 3.2 mph. The motorized kit can move carts over a wide variety of surfaces, including carpet, tile, marble, cement and asphalt. Powered by two heavy-duty 12-volt batteries, the 24-volt motor in DJ Products’ retrofit cart kit is powerful enough to perform for an entire shift without recharging. Customizable to any application or environment, the DJ Products retrofit cart kit can be field installed by the customer or DJ Products can provide onsite installation.

For complete specifications and to view the revolutionary DJ Products motorized retrofit cart kit in action, visit the DJ Products website.

Hazards in the Workplace

Many things located in your workplace; things that you use every single day without a second though, things as common as pallets, ladders, hand trucks can all prove to be dangerous if not used properly.  Many of the pieces of equipment that you use on a regular basis, the things that you come in contact with so often that you take their necessity for granted, can pose a serious health risk to you and others if they aren’t in good condition or if they aren’t properly used.

Regular inspections of all equipment should be made to ensure that everything is in good working condition, regular maintenance should be performed on any equipment that contains moving parts and you should ensure that all of your employees are educated on the proper use of the equipment.

The equipment that you use everyday needs to be: properly used by your employees, in good working condition and capable of handling the work that you are using it for.  Many workplace injuries can be avoided simply by the use of the right equipment for the task at hand.  The electric carts and lifts offered by DJ Products are easy to operate – your employees can be trained quickly to operate these lifts properly, safely and efficiently.  They are quiet – the rest of your employees won’t be distracted by excessive noise while DJ Product’s equipment is operating.  They are highly efficient and have long battery life – your employees won’t be stuck with an unfinished load of material in the middle of your warehouse due to the fact that their cart died.  All of these attributes will make your warehouse more efficient and much safer for all of your employees.

Safety should be a prime concern when you work in material handling – and safety starts with the right equipment for the job and properly trained employees.  You can make your operation as safe as possible and dramatically increase your company’s efficiency by using the right equipment for the job.

Ergonomic Solutions for Warehouse Order Fulfillment

If your business relies on a warehouse to ship goods to your customers then you know that getting orders is only half of the battle. Once you have secured a customer’s order, it is then up to you and your team to see to it that the order reaches that customer in good condition as quickly as possible. We have no doubt that you have stressed the importance of filling orders quickly to your employees…but have you given them the right equipment to make this happen? It is important to give your employees the supplies so they can carry out your vision.

When employees are working as quickly as possible but using outdated or inadequate machinery, they are more prone to injury. In addition to this, rickety carts, unstable dollies, and overused scissor lifts can result in spilled or damaged merchandise. Having employees out on leave because of injury and losing merchandise to accidents can eat away at your profits and you do not want that.

DJ Products offers and entire lineup for industrial ergonomic material handling solutions including:

• Carts with casters
• Carts with 4-swivel casters or wagon-wheel style of turning
• Carts in a straight line
• Platform Trucks & Scissor Lifts

Our ergonomic cart pushers, electric cart pullers and other solutions eliminate the strain of manually pulling heavy product, parts carts, or wheeled equipment. Your employees can continue to work efficiently with a reduced chance of injury or product damage.

Our products are not one-size-fits-all. Contact us at 800-686-2651 to discuss exactly what you need and the customization options that will work for your industry.

Ergonomic Material Handling Equipment Meets Needs of Multi-Generational Workforce

Finding, training and keeping qualified workers is slated for discussion at the Material Handling Industry of America (MHIA) annual conference NA 2010 scheduled for April 26-29 (see our January 4 post). The conference will devote two educational sessions to managing the supply chain workforce:

  • How Industry is Changing Material Handling Training and Education will focus on the demanding skill sets now necessary to perform even entry-level jobs in highly sophisticated, automated warehouses, distribution centers and fulfillment houses.
  • Building the Workforce of Tomorrow will focus on the challenge of integrating multi-generational workforces successfully as baby boomers and the knowledge they harbor leave the industry.

The move toward more automated supply chain operations and the increasing sophistication of the technology that drives them presents a considerable workforce challenge for supply chain managers. Technology is necessitating a more highly skilled supply chain worker making it difficult to find suitable workforce candidates among the industry’s traditional unskilled labor pool. Exacerbating the problem is the coming retirement of skilled baby boomers who have been the backbone of the supply chain industry for decades. Supply chain managers worry that there simply won’t be enough new workers coming into the system to replace those who are leaving it. The poor economic climate has actually alleviated that part of the problem somewhat. Lost savings and pinched budgets have forced many baby boomers to return to the workforce or push retirement back a few more years.

While their expertise is welcome, the distinct physical needs of an aging workforce have thrown another wrench into the supply chain machinery. Ergonomic material handling equipment that removes the physical burden from the worker could be the key to accommodating senior workers. Adjustability allows ergonomically designed carts and tugs to accommodate workers of every shape, size, sex and physical ability, providing supply chain managers with maximum use of their workforce.