Safety excellence - The six critical components

Power Pusher helps to provide safety in a working environment through their material handling tugs but safety can also be provided in a number of different ways outside of purely physical safety. Actions made in management and supervision also play an important role according to this ISHN article. Are these visible elements a part of your safety processes?

Eugene Zemlyanskiy, Flickr.com

Dr. Dan Petersen was one of the great safety pioneers of the last 50 years. His focus was consistently on developing a viable safety culture that lived safety accountabilities at all levels of the organization. Organizations fully utilizing his Six Criteria for Safety Excellence are among the leaders in safety performance. These criteria are:

Visible Upper Management Commitment to safety. In most organizations it is difficult to pry executives away from their cost, quality and customer responsibilities and have them be visible in the workplace with respect to safety. Roles, responsibilities and associated activities are essential if we are to make the executives field presence accomplishable.

Active Middle Manager Involvement in safety. It is not uncommon for organizations to have far fewer middle managers than in years past. This fact makes their active presence on a regular basis at the workface even more of a challenge. Once again, practical roles, responsibilities and activities provide guidance for these important people to make themselves known in safety where it counts most, on the front line.

To continue reading about the six critical components to safety excellence, click here.

Flexible Material Handling

Tugs not only improve control, but also increase flexibility with the option to push and pull loads, depending on application requirements. Further, these devices can provide additional stability, as multiple devices can work in unison to move difficult loads. For instance, when constructing pre-fabricated housing, each piece is moved sideways along the construction zone. Using a tug on each end of the piece, operators can push the material in sync.

Material handling tugs can also be equipped with safety accessories and job-specific attachments. With the option for safety horns and strobes, operators can signal facility occupants of their impeding approach to avoid collisions—even on noisy plant floors. Further, for challenging or diverse loads, tugs can be equipped with attachments designed to complement individual needs, such as a push pad assembly, railroad truck attachment and an angle plate for modular homes. These attachments provide the ideal performance capabilities for transporting virtually any load safely and efficiently.

The Evolution of Material Mobility

With an estimated 85 forklift fatalities and thousands of material handling-related injuries each year, the need for alternative solution arose. To mitigate some of the serious safety risks associated with forklifts and pallet jacks, many industries are moving away from this technology to wheeled cart solutions.

Battery-operated tugs are designed to provide a safer alternative for moving large loads, without exposing personnel to unnecessary risk. By effectively distributing and mobilizing virtually any load on wheels, users can transport thousands of pounds with total control and without strain—preventing injuries, reduced productivity and lost revenue experienced with other material handling solutions.