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With the launch of our new web site, we’ve added a blog. Here we’ll keep you updated on the latest news and trends for safety in the material handling industry. That may cover many topics, from the latest forecasts for manufacturing and material handling, updates in regulations and standards from OSHA and ANSI, as well as some of our safety gate installations and custom work.

On the blog you’ll also find updates from some of the organizations we belong to, like MHEDA and MHI, as well as MHI’s ProGMA Committee.

We’re looking forward to sharing our news and views with you, and if there is a topic you would like us to touch on, just let us know.

Fall Protection: 4 Tasks to Perform Now to Ensure Safety

Fall protection is at the top of the OSHA violations list for 2017, and it’s consistently been at the top of this violation list for many years. The National Safety Council found that fall protection accounted for over 6,000 citations as of September 5, 2017.

Fall protection is a big category within OSHA, and the organization updated the Walking-Working Surfaces rule in the past couple of years; there are rumblings that it may be updated again in the coming years.

As we approach the end of the year, it’s important to review your facility to determine that you have the proper guarding and safety devices in place to prevent falls and worker injury. Here are four tasks to make sure you provide the best fall protection at your facility and are up to date with regulations.

Do a Walk Through
Schedule time during the day when you can walk through the facility and see every area in which employees are working. Start by reviewing inside the facility to the areas with the highest elevations as these are the most dangerous areas. Often you will notice elevated work platforms with insufficient guardrail or proper safety barriers where pallets are being loaded up to the areas. Then move towards the outside and the loading dock areas. Note each area in which employees must work from an elevated surface -- anything that raises an employee off the ground floor is elevated and should be properly guarded. Make notes of any unprotected ledges, anything impeding egress through the area, loose items on the deck, or any wet or slick surfaces. Clean up or move anything that can be corrected immediately, and tag or close out areas that will require additional review.

Review Existing Equipment
Take an inventory of your existing safety equipment - this could be safety gates, machine guarding, netting, personal equipment like respirators and more. Make sure all of these items are functioning correctly and meet current OSHA and ANSI standards.

Make note if your operation has changed since these devices were installed in case modifications to the equipment are required to make sure they are accommodating the current procedure. For example, if you have a pallet drop area that now is replenished by a hoist instead of a fork truck, you may need to modify the type of gate used to secure that area.

Talk with Employees
Your employees are one of your most valuable assets and they have great insights into your business - especially the applications and processes they work on. Ask them about the tasks that they perform; in many industrial facilities the tasks are repetitive and can be tiring. Ask them if they feel safe while they are working, especially those on elevated platforms or in the loading dock area. Find out if the safety practices are being done correctly, and if not, offer training.
Observe them working; is there equipment that can be installed to make their procedure easier and safer? Run ideas by them; their feedback is imperative to making the environment as safe and efficient as possible.

Make a List & Reach Out to a Professional
Note all of the areas in your facility that may need a second look when it comes to safety; pay close attention to pallet drop areas, mixing platforms and loading docks as those areas often pose the greatest risk for falls. Make sure to note any swing gates in pallet drop areas, which should be replaced with dual-gate safety systems.

Once you have a list, contact a company that specializes in material handling safety; this could be a consultant or a manufacturer. Chances are, what is unique to you has been installed many times by a professional organization. Share with them what you have observed and learned and they will do the same.

Fall protection should not be an after thought, but as the OSHA violations list shows, it often is not top of mind when it comes to industrial facilities. Protecting employees from falling is a must; by offering protection, you are not only protecting your company from fines, but also protecting workers from injury, and in severe cases, death.

Industrial Facilities Common Denominator: Safety Equipment

In today’s industrial facility, it’s not uncommon to have multiple processes taking place in the same building, often on the same elevated work platform. These processes each have their own unique requirements for equipment and personnel, but one common denominator should be proper safety equipment to ensure a safe environment.

We worked with a chemical plant that needed to provide safety for its employees in a number of applications performed in its facility. To secure each unique area, our team did a walk through of the facility with the safety managers to view each area and provide the best solution for each application. After review, our engineers designed solutions for each area. Once fabricated, our installers were able to install the solutions and secure these areas.

The company’s facility had a few areas in which overhead hoists were loading super sacks to elevated areas so employees could mix the ingredients into the hoppers; a few featured pallet drop areas right next to the hopper. Tight quarters on elevated platforms coupled with processes that require repetitive lifting of heavy material in a dusty, hot environment can provide a recipe for unsafe situations for employees; risk of falling from unguarded ledges during loading and unloading operations is great without proper protection. Because each area had its own unique process and space limitations, specific fall protection solutions were designed for each area.

The fall protection solution we provided for the areas with the overhead hoists was our Open Top safety gate model, which uses an interconnected dual-gate system without any overhead mechanics that ensures one gate is always protecting the employees from the ledge at all times. This allowed the hoist to access the area from above while keeping the employee a safe distance from the ledge.

Some of these areas required side access to the material, so we designed the Open Top model in a ninety-degree configuration. A couple of these areas were wash-down environments so we supplied the safety gates in a stainless steel construction.

Other areas where loaded by a lift truck but had limited depth due to the location of the hoppers, so we provided our Tri-Side model safety gate, which uses a cantilevered rear-side gate that lifts up and out of the way to allow access around the pallet in tight environments while always keeping the ledge secured.

This facility also had an area in a doorway on the upper level. Because remote control to the gate was required, we provided our original dual-gate safety system, the Roly model, with power operation and a radio frequency remote for the lift truck.

Another area had limited height but was used for loading tall pallet loads. We supplied a custom designed version of our Pivot Model, adjusting the pivot point locations to fit the space constraints while accommodating the pallet sizes.

There were also two areas that were unique in every stage of the process, involving an overhead hoist, limited depth, limited height and required side access to the area. Because we did not have a standard design that could fit this environment, we designed one that did. This unnamed solution, designed specifically for this area, was able to secure the area then rotate up and out of the way to allow secure egress to the area.

So just like there are no two applications alike, there is not really one safety gate that is perfect for every application in an industrial facility. Reach out to discuss your specific application. You can also learn more about how to pick the right safety gate model here.

 

 

Safety: 3 Ways to Keep Productivity Intact

In today’s business environment, productivity is key to success. Regardless of the size of the business, productivity depends on employees, equipment and the operations workflow.

Operations and processes are changing too, but there is still a need for safety. AGVs, robots and other unmanned vehicles continue to be integrated into operations in material handling, we’ll see more need ensuring safety devices can communicate with these devices to keep productivity and efficiency intact.

Safety is a necessity in any operation - from manufacturing to material handling to distribution. Some safety managers may see safety devices as an impediment, worrying about adding in any additional equipment or processes to existing operations. However, we’d strongly argue that safety devices serve a need - keeping workers from falling or being injured on the job. In addition, safety doesn’t have to impede operations, and in fact, safety can help make processes more efficient.

Ideally, we like to design our line of dual-gate safety devices to be manually operated. Manual operation creates the highest level of safety because the worker on the platform is the only person controlling the opening and closing of the gate. This can be very important for any material handling or manufacturing application in which lift trucks or AGVs are involved. However in some instances, the manual operation of the gate may be slowed due to the nature of the application, which then slows operations and productivity.

If you are concerned that a safety device may impede operations or slow productivity, consider the following options to ensure your employees are protected and your productivity doesn’t slow down.

Power Operation:
If an operation requires access to the safety gate remotely, we offer power-operation for any of our safety gate models, which can save time in operations in which lift trucks are depositing material to upper levels. Push button controls allow for employees on lower and upper levels to open and close the safety gates to load and unload material.

All of the power-operated systems we offer include built-in safety features like photo eyes that detect the presence of a person or object and prevent the gates from closing, along with a adjustable clutch that will engage if the gate were to make contact with an object.The motors have built-in safety features and numerous controls that can be used, like radio frequency remotes on the lift truck, and flashing lights and caution alarms.

Wireless Controls and Sensors:
Adding controls or sensors to the safety devices can also speed operations, especially in those that incorporate AGVs. Safety gates can be equipped with sensors to allow the AGV to determine if the ledge gate of the safety gate was open or closed. Photo eyes posted on the gate can also work with sensors to ensure the ledge-side gate is in place when it detects workers on the platform, providing safety for the workers on the upper levels.
Controls can also be integrated with the safety gate power operation so that when the ledge gate is up, sensors send information to an AGV, telling it that material can be loaded into the pallet drop area. Once the pallets are loaded into the work area, the sensors send a signal to close the ledge-side of the safety gate and the workers can then work with the material that was loaded into the area.

Software Integration:
Software integration with safety gates can help track product and processes in a facility’s operations. For example, one customer wanted to tie in the operation of the safety gate with their processing computers so the system could track ingredients to each pallet drop area. By using power operation, the safety gate power station can be wired into a facility’s system so the computers can record when the safety gates were operated. The integration can track the cycles of the safety gate to determine what had been delivered, what had been processed and which area needed to be replenished. It can also track the time it takes to do each task.

Safety devices do not need to impede on a facility’s processes or workflow. Power operation, wireless controls and sensors and software integration can be added to our any of our safety gate models - regardless of the gate model, depth, width or height. Contact us if you’d like to learn more about how safety devices can truly integrate into your facility’s operations and processes.

Facility Safety: Securing Tight Elevated Areas

Space is always a concern in industrial facilities. It’s important to maximize the space that is available for equipment, workers and the operations process.

Companies often maximize the available cubic space by building elevated platforms/mezzanines, but then are concerned with effectively utilizing this additional space. With this space being taken up with shelving, product and equipment there is often little room left available for operations, let alone safety devices.

Production platforms in facilities are notorious for tight spaces as they are filled with hoppers, reactors, and ingredients. These areas almost always use employees to load ingredients into the hopper to mix/produce their end product.

We recently worked with a chemical company to make their production facility safer. The company’s safety manager was looking to secure a number of areas in which a lift truck deposited material on an elevated platform next to a hopper. The pallets of bagged ingredients are deposited very close to the hopper so the employees can just cut the bags open, turn and pour them into the hopper. Space was very limited for employees, and they did not think there was room for a proper safety system.

Our engineers know that there is no such thing as too little space when it comes to safety. After reviewing the requirements and application, the team determined the best safety system for their production areas was our Tri-Side safety gate model. With dual-counterbalanced gates interconnected so one gate is always in place to secure the ledge, and fixed stanchions only 14 inches deep, the Tri-Side gate was the ideal solution for the application because it maintained a safe environment at all times while allowing access around the pallet.

The Tri-Side gates provided safety on the platforms and allowed workers to continue their operations with clear unobstructed access to the loads. Because of the Tri-Side design, the bags of ingredients could be moved to either side at 90 degrees very easily, and dumped into the hopper, all while the ledge gate is down, protecting workers from the ledge side. And, in different areas of the plant, some units were provided in stainless while other areas were powder coated depending on the environment.
 

For this application the customer was also concerned with securing not only the personnel up on the platform but also their product. We included special ledge-side gates with solid metal panels to prevent the bags from falling off of the ledge. With this configuration, the operators could pick the ingredients from the pallet within a safe environment.

Software Integration

Our customer also wanted to tie in the operation of the safety gate with their processing computers so the system could track the ingredients to each pallet drop area. We power operated the safety gate with a commercial jackshaft operator and a push-button station for open, close and stop. The customer then wired the unit into their system so the computers would record when the safety gates were operated. With their own software, they were able to record the cycles of the safety gate to determine what had been delivered, what had been processed and which area needed to be replenished.

If you have an area with limited space that you need to secure, consider the Tri-Side gate. We make it in custom sizes, custom finishes and power operated. It can also be designed in a rack-supported design to install into pick module.