As the manager, you’re responsible for creating a safe work environment, especially when the environment in question is a congested loading dock filled with heavy loads and obstructions that make it easier for workers to sustain injuries. You may not see them as a big deal, but they cost the supply chain $675 million annually.
First order of business: replace your moving equipment with our ergonomic equipment-moving systems. Second: follow these safety tips.
Reduce the Fall Risk
Fall accidents constitute 25% of all loading dock injuries. Workers may trip, fall, or slip due to clutter, inclement weather, or the large 48-inch cavities that open up whenever a trailer isn’t being loaded or unloaded at the dock.
Here are some precautions to prevent these accidents:
- Paint the area near the opening to keep the workers away.
- Keep the bay door shut when you don’t have a truck at the dock.
- Insulate the bay doors to prevent slipping due to melting snow or rain.
- Establish a safety protocol.
- Conduct biannual audits to ensure follow-through.
Address Forklift Injuries
Out-of-control forklifts can lead to freak accidents or machinery damage at the dock. In 2020, they were responsible for 78 workplace fatalities and 7,290 survivable injuries. When a forklift loses traction, it might hit itself, workers, dock walls, materials, and other machinery.
Here’s how you can prevent this risk:
- Organize workplace safety training.
- Clean your warehouse regularly.
- Improve safety mechanisms.
- Carry out regular maintenance on your forklifts.
- Stack the loads with proper material handling equipment.
Let Trained Personnel Handle the Loading Equipment
Let Trained Personnel Handle the Loading EquipmentNot all your workers will have OSHA-compliant training under their belts. Letting unqualified workers handle equipment is the last thing you should do. Invest in trained drivers if you don’t have them already. Coming from ergonomic equipment experts, they’ll make your dock much safer and save you the expense of frequent work-related injuries.
Hire drivers who know how to drive the specific automobile at your job site. They must know their way around truck controls, load limits, and user instructions and find it easy to navigate ramps, cramped lanes, pedestrians, clutter, and the weather.
Lastly, invest in refresher training every time your drivers make a mistake that leads to a minor or major accident, in addition to a refresher course every three years.
Switch to Ergonomic Equipment Moving Systems
There’s a lot of heavy lifting at loading docks. Ensure your workers know the proper procedure for manual heavy load handling in your daily operations. They should also wear personal protective equipment while handling loads manually or through automated guided vehicles.
Speaking of automation, you can switch to heavy load moving machinery for most of the manual lifting. Workers don’t have to use their bodies to carry objects when forklifts aren’t an option.
Check out our air bearing products online, which can lift, carry, move, and unload materials in tight spaces and requires only a fraction of your workforce. They support light and heavy loads weighing 16,000lbs, reducing the use of forklifts and manual labor.
Reach out to discuss air bearing modules and industrial turntables.