Safety

Gorbel’s Load Handling Technology Reimagined to Improve Patient Outcomes — By Carol Miller, MHI Vice President of Marketing and Communications — After watching her daughter endure painful gait and balance rehabilitation during her recovery from a motorcycle accident in 2011, one of MHI member Gorbel’s employees approached President and CEO Brian Reh to suggest the company adapt its G-Force® overhead ...

Revolutionary New Features and Trends in Lift Truck Design Are Benefitting the Supply Chains That Rely on Them By Greg Baer, MHI Director of Sales Even a casual browser passing through the lift truck exhibits at ProMat 2017 could clearly see that today’s load handlers are packing every bit as much technology as today’s consumer cars. And not just operator ...

Turntables Reduce Worker Strain and Increase Productivity By Jean Feingold The constant moving required of workers engaged in manual material handling (MMH) can cause injury. One particularly stressful movement is reaching out or forward from the body while lifting. In fact, the likelihood of injury when reaching out is greater than when bending forward, noted Jim Galante of MHI member ...

Items often need to be moved within a factory or warehouse. When workers lift and carry them manually the work is hard and subjects workers to serious risk of injury. If the items are heavy, these tasks can take multiple workers. Now there is a faster, safer way to do this work by using workstation crane systems, also known as ...

Order picking is how warehouse and distribution center workers fulfill orders. “Order picking systems help reduce errors in picking by telling the worker what to pick and then confirming what was picked,” noted Brian C. Neuwirth of MHI member UNEX Manufacturing, Inc. “As order picking is the most labor intensive process in a warehouse, whatever can be done to speed ...

Measures achieved through technology and robotics are helping make the manufacturing workplace safer When Bob Hoffman began working with integrated robotic welding systems in the early 1980s, there were limited safety precautions. “The robot cell safety equipment would be a waist-high railing with a sign on a gate warning of the dangers, no safety interlocks. I could stand right next ...

Racks, mezzanines, staircases, walkways and storage shelves in material handling facilities have edges. Preventing people, boxes, pallets, tools, materials and packaging from falling off these edges onto the floor below is edge protection’s goal. Mezzanines maximize facilities’ cubic space. Falls of people and objects are a concern in these elevated work areas with the risk of harm extending to people ...

There is a trend in the manual materials handling (MMH) industry to utilize towable industrial carts rather than fork trucks as a solution for moving materials within a facility. Let’s examine the advantages of towable carts for moving materials in some industrial environments. Better visibility and improved ergonomics When a forklift operator moves a load of materials, they are seated behind ...

When there are ergonomic issues in a plant, there are most likely production bottlenecks, waste or even lost time injuries. Since there is usually more than one way to solve a material handling (MH) problem, finding the best ergonomic solution and/or safety equipment is an investigative process. Here are some simple steps to start that process: 1. Ask yourself, “In ...

Ergonomic workstations bring the work to the workers by optimizing the fit between people, their tools, the task and their environment. Examples include raising tables or using tilting work surfaces. The goal is to avoid forcing operators to lean over to do their work using a poor posture that could result in low back and/or upper back discomfort, explained Kelly ...