Warehouse safety rules

It would be difficult to maintain any workplace without the existence of general work rules. The same holds true for safety. If safety is to be enforced as well as directed, safe-working rules are important. During the new employee process, warehouse safety rules should be discussed. At union sites, collective bargaining agreements will also help to highlight the required safety rules. 

What is the best way to convey the safety rules First, the rules should be in writing. Often, safety committees help to develop site-specific safety rules as a result of injuries or close-calls. It is recommended that a list of all of the safety rules be provided to new employees. A spoken overview of the rules can take place, but employees may begin to yawn and lose attention during this type of presentation. 

An employee safety handbook that can conveniently fit into a pocket is an excellent way to make all of the safety rules available at one time. A perforated tear-out sheet at the back of the handbook is intended to be signed, dated, and provided to management by the new employee. The tear-out sheet verifies that he/she has received the facility safety rules. 

The following general safety rules and guidelines are useful in any warehouse and should be considered for employee safeguarding. If a specific set of safety rules is needed, it can easily be pulled from the following 

Housekeeping is to be maintained at an excellent level at all times. This includes the work area, lunchroom, rest rooms, locker rooms, and grounds around the warehouse. 

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Operator can still drive into a trailer when the red light is flashing (an obvious violation of warehouse safety rules). 

Riding hazardous moving equipment. Moving equipment poses a hazard by its very nature. Trucks, trailers, powered equipment, equipment elevators, and conveyors can cause injury to someone who decides to ride on them. The rule of no riders is essential in any list of warehouse safety rules. Employees can easily fall off of the moving equipment or become trapped between machines, rollers or moving parts. 

Routine violation occurs when the breaking of a safety rule or procedure is the normal way of working. It becomes routine not to use the recommended procedures for tasks. An example of this is the regular speeding of fork lift trucks in a warehouse so that orders can be fulfilled on time. 

The ANSI standard recommends, (as well as OSHA), that only trained and authorized persons be permitted to operate a powered industrial truck. It is not unusual for any employee to climb aboard a forklift or grab onto the handle of a powered pallet jack to test his skills or to complete a task. This often results in serious incidents or injury to others. This is why it is important to have a safety rule in a warehouse, or wherever, that only trained and authorized employees have permission to operate the equipment. In addition, operators shall be qualified based on visual, auditory, physical, and mental ability to operate the equipment safely according to the data below. 

Management must rely on supervisors to enforce work rules, which include safety rules. If safety rules have been established for the warehouse, it is important that everyone know what the rules represent. However, some supervisors make the mistake of thinking that the only unsafe acts committed by employees are safety-rule violations. Unsafe acts are not always violations of established safety rules. Many supervisors may not recognize or take action against employees committing unsafe acts if a safety rule has not been violated. Management must be concerned with all unsafe acts, not just those safety rules that have been established as work rules. 

Companies which handle hazardous chemicals operate in a complex regulatory environment, often subject to many regulations, standards, rules, and procedures from government, standards organizations, and insurers. These requirements can be confusing, redundant or even mutually inconsistent. Moreover, even complete regulatory compliance will not assure a safe warehouse operation. The unique operation of every company therefore requires that management should look beyond the letter of the law to the specific needs of that operation to establish an effective safety policy that is based on the nature of the hazards involved. 

If each individual retailer carried its own inventory, it would maintain an inventory level of Lfi + (Zct-JL). Thus the total system inventory would be n LfX, + (Zct-JL)). The pooled inventory includes a safety stock of Z(Jy/nL while the individual locations would generate a safety stock of Z(7n-jL. Thus, the role of the warehouse in a distribution supply chain is to decrease the buffer capacity by a factor of Jn. This - fn effect is a rule of thumb to estimate the benefit of consolidating inventory in a supply chain. 

Just as important is the manner in which the initial safety message is conveyed to the new employees. The tone, attitude, and sincerity (or lack of it) will be felt by the new workers. If new employees are a part of a warehouse walk-through, they will notice how fellow workers are conducting themselves. If a hard-hat rule exists and the employee has been told to wear a hard hat, it is expected that fellow workers, supervisors, and visitors will also be wearing hard hats. If there are requirements for safe forklift operations and professional driving skills, the new worker should be able to observe this. If management states one thing and allows the opposite to take place, the new worker will see this disparity of work practices. 

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