Safety

Safer Handling BY TOM GRESHAM Operators of factories and warehouses increasingly are seeking to integrate industrial lift devices with other components of their spaces. No longer do lifts operate in relative isolation. In that way, lifts are “a piece of the overall machine now,” said James Johnston, director of engineering at MHI member Autoquip and chair of Lift Manufacturers Product ...

BY TOM GRESHAM Link to digital version of article in MHI Solutions. Twenty years ago, ergonomics “was kind of a nice thing to do,” said Jim Galante, chair of MHI’s Ergonomic Assist Systems & Equipment (EASE) Industry Group, but it was not an area that attracted close attention in material handling. In the decades since then, however, he said an ...

Ergonomics—the science that designs environments, equipment, tools and tasks within the capabilities of people to maximize productivity, efficiency and safety—has been an important part of the material handling industry for decades.

Three of MHI’s Industry Groups recently were appointed ambassadors to a federal program geared toward the safety of hoists, cranes and monorails.

The quest for an injury-free workplace requires solid management systems and investments in safety-enhancing technologies, but a strong culture–based on leadership visibility, employee engagement and accountability–is key to achieving a great track record over the long haul.

Speed is the name of the game these days in conveyor and sortation systems. As the pressure to ship material faster grows with the rise of e-commerce and building customer expectations for rapid delivery, the systems that move and sort orders are accelerating. With that speed comes more potential for risks. “Sortation equipment was sorting 50 feet per minute a ...

As the ANSI-accredited developer of shelving systems and work platforms, the Storage Manufacturers Association (SMA) promotes the safe design and use of these crucial infrastructure components across the material handling industry. To that end, the SMA, led by Chairman Kevin O’Neill of MHI member Steele Solutions and Engineering Committee Chairman Arlin Keck of MHI member Steel King Industries, will complete ...

The companies that earn a spot in the list of finalists for the MHI Innovation Awards go through a rigorous vetting process by the judges. But, it isn’t just the companies on that list that consider themselves winners. One of the judges in this year’s panel of eight spoke to the value of the Innovation Awards for everyone involved when ...

At their essence, electrification and machine controlling devices are about safety in industrial handling. Solutions in the field serve to make the workplace safer in every major manufacturing and distribution sector. Today, the central safety question the field faces is how to properly introduce increasingly sophisticated technological tools and to ensure they are aligned with each other in the operation ...

The Protective Guarding Manufacturers Association (ProGMA) member companies have been busy. The leaders from across the industry have been regularly reviewing and discussing the latest technology and its impact on their day-to-day operations. With this in mind, ProGMA recently announced the launch of Protective Guarding Search Tool, which will streamline the protective guarding purchaser’s buying process when it comes to ...