Warehouses are a key and integral part of your business, but when poorly designed or maintained, they can be very dangerous places for your workers to inhabit. To ensure your warehouse safety, it’s important to regularly assess and appraise how to improve your warehouse environment to keep your workers safe. In terms of keeping everyone unharmed and boosting productivity levels, a well-run warehouse is vital for your business.
Here are a few things to consider when you assess your warehouse safety.
Choosing the Correct Profile Frames and Beam
One key consideration with your pallet racking selection is choosing the correct profile of frames and beams from the outset. Not all pallet racking is created the same. A ‘standard’ 90x70x2mm post section for your frames can sometimes be inadequate.
Examples include areas where the chance of impact is higher than in standard working conditions, such as drive-in racking or installations in freezers and chillers. In addition, where higher racking requirements are in place or in a high seismic zone or areas where the concrete and soil classes at the site are below optimum, then a more significant post section is both essential, and an excellent investment as impact damage will be lessened.
See our Case Study for Auckland Meat Processors that has seen them select the correct frame profile for their drive-in racking to replace a damaged and outdated predecessor leading to a significant improvement in Warehouse Safety.
Vehicle Safety
Whether your workers drive forklifts or lift trucks, vehicle safety is essential to prevent impact or crush injuries. We have several products available to enhance safety:
Pedestrian barriers
Pedestrian barriers provide clear segregation between pedestrians and traffic. Easy to install medium-weight steel with H1050mm post sections and length to fit. Self-closing gates are also available to complete the installation.
Forklift barriers
Forklift barriers help to avoid collisions and protect your stock and your staff by segregating work zones. Heavy duty steel barriers with H1050mm post sections and length to fit. Sections can be easily replaced if damaged and self closing gates are available. These can be supplied and installed as a lower level option (for protecting items such as charging stations, or have an added handrail on top to also act as a full pedestrian barrier.
Bollards and stainless steel bollards
Bollards protect against collision, block vehicle access and increase site safety. Available in powder coated steel or galvanised.
Stainless steel bollards are designed for indoor use to increase site safety in high volume spaces. They are ideal for retail spaces, supermarkets, airports, malls, commercial office space and food storage areas.
For further details download our brochure.
Pallets and Racking
Most warehouses require staff to load and unload pallets on racking, either by hand or with machinery. Your workers must carry these tasks out safely so they don’t drop pallets on people, affect the stability of racking, or damage other equipment.
To ensure pallet and racking safety, you should:
- Train staff to load pallets securely. Use shrink or stretch wrapping to support pallets and follow a suitable stacking pattern as recommended by the manufacturer.
- Make sure staff follow the safe stacking height and weight capacity recommended by the manufacturer. They should stack them evenly, with heavier pallets on the bottom.
- Instruct staff to inspect each pallet before use. Pallets should not contain loose nails, splinters, cracks, or any other issues.
- Â Tell staff not to climb, lean on, or walk over pallets or racking. Some staff may not recognise the damage they can do and how easily they could fall or knock something off the racking.
- Ensure staff do not use pallets or fork lift trucks to access heights. They should use a ladder or another type of suitable equipment to reach higher shelves.
- Provide staff with suitable personal protective equipment (PPE). PPE helps prevent exposure to numerous hazards.
In addition we have several specific safety products to keep your racking contents in place:
Pallet stop bars
Pallet stop bars protect your staff and your stock by preventing pallets from being pushed off the rack or pushed too far and damaging other pallets. If used in double rows of racking they are used to stop one row from hitting the pallet in row behind.
Fork entry bars
Fork entry bars allow forklift access to un-palletised loads such as lengths of steel, timber and MDF sheets. A safer solution than using wooden dunnage because the entry bars lock into position over the beams. This prevents any movement on the beam surface.
Anti-collapse Mesh
Protect your staff from falling products with an anti-collapse mesh safety system. Essential for warehouse safety, this system uses wire mesh and brackets on new or existing installations.
Safety Audits
To ensure the ongoing safety of your staff and your stock, we also recommend arranging a pallet racking maintenance and safety audit. We will check out any damage, supply any new components needed and quickly manage the installation, to minimise your downtime.
This service provides invaluable peace of mind in areas of high seismic activity or following an impact to the racking from your material handling equipment. This programme includes an annual (or bi annual) physical inspection which may result in a recommendation for maintenance. Find out more about what’s involved.
Contact us today if you have any questions about warehouse safety or pallet racking audits. Our friendly and knowledgeable staff will be happy to help in any way they can
Pallet Racking Solutions designs, supplies and installs quality pallet racking and warehouse storage solutions, New Zealand wide. Follow our blog for the latest innovations, new tech, safety and compliance, case studies and in-depth explanations of our solutions.