Building Materials Industry: Warehouse Solutions for Efficiency and Worker Safety
For warehouses that store building materials, several challenges exist. These hurdles threaten the capability of warehouses in the building materials industry to stay profitable. Recognizing the issues this sector faces allows production managers to make the necessary changes to procedures and equipment to reduce risk. Cherry’s Industrial Equipment can help with optimizing equipment for improved construction materials warehouse efficiency and productivity.
Jump to Sections:
- Common Challenges Facing the Building Materials Industry
- How to Make Your Building Materials Warehouse More Efficient
- 5 Steps to Increase Workplace Safety at Your Building Material Warehouse
- Learn How Cherry’s Equipment Can Improve Your Warehouse Effectiveness
- Contact Cherry’s Industrial Equipment Today for Storage and Shipping Solutions for Building Materials Warehouses
Common Challenges Facing the Building Materials Industry
The building materials industry faces several obstacles that can curtail its growth rate. These problems affect everything from the products used for organizing the warehouses to the goods stored there. Recognizing these issues makes it easier to see their impact on your operations and make plans to mitigate their harm to your business.
1. Meeting Regulations for Wood Packaging Materials
The construction industry and shipping sector both understand the need for sourcing materials to meet regulations for wood packaging for international trade. Why have regulations for wood pallets?
The International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) established International Standards for Phytosanitary Measures (ISPM) to reduce the introduction of pests to new locations. One of these, ISPM 15, requires heat treatment or methyl bromide fumigation of wood used for international transport, such as wood pallets. Treating the wood or completed pallets with heat kills pests that could travel to other places and cause ecological damage to native flora and fauna.
Wood containers shipped to other countries requiring ISPM 15 standards must have an IPPC mark. This mark indicates the material has undergone one of the two approved treatment methods to kill pests in the wood. Equipment used in building material warehouses covered by ISPM include pallets, crates, packing blocks, shipping containers, wooden spools and wood boards used as separators.
Wood pallets are in high demand, and with rising wood prices that have nearly doubled in parts of the country, pallets have become increasingly more expensive to acquire, whether treated or not. Consequently, for warehouses that need to save money, using wood pallets becomes less cost effective in the face of soaring prices.
2. Preventing Product Damage
Many products in building materials warehouses come in large bags. However, these bags can tear during handling, such as a forklift fork ripping a bag on a pallet. If a damaged bag remains in the order, a customer could refuse the entire shipment, causing lost revenue and wasted time.
One way to address this concern is through improved training in forklift use. Another method of reducing the damage done by a single product on a pallet is removing the damaged item and repalletizing the load.
3. Protecting Workers When Handling Heavy Products
Building materials can weigh much more than products in other types of warehouses. For instance, four pieces of 10-foot 2-by-4 lumber weigh 51 pounds. This exceeds the 50-pound maximum weight that a single person should lift without assistance.
Improper lifting techniques or lifting too much weight can lead to worker injuries or fatigue, which can reduce productivity. To maintain construction warehouse efficiency, the facility must have the proper equipment to prevent worker injuries when these individuals handle heavy building materials.
4. Reducing the Impact of Labor Shortages
Finding people to work in the construction industry and the warehouses that hold equipment for it presents a serious problem for this sector. Not having enough people to fulfill orders can reduce the efficiency of a building materials warehouse. With a hot housing market, the worker shortage in these warehouses becomes more acutely felt.
Improving warehouse efficiency can reduce the impact of a labor shortage. When each individual is more productive, the facility needs fewer people to function.
5. Decreasing the Influence of Supply Chain Issues
Another major concern for construction industry warehouses is acquiring materials to fulfill customer demand. Material shortages have plagued the industry to such an extent that 90% of builders report shortages of major components of construction projects — plywood, appliances, framing lumber and strand board. Improving warehouse organization can solidify supplier relationships and reduce some issues with the supply chain for production managers.
How to Make Your Building Materials Warehouse More Efficient
You can create an efficient warehouse by changing your processes and equipment. By optimizing methods for pulling and storing products, your facility reduces the need for extra workers, prevents injuries and avoids product damage. Subsequently, greater efficiency can answer many of the concerns faced by building materials warehouses.
1. Improve Productivity With Automated Equipment
Worker productivity drops when individuals have to do manual tasks that could be automated. For instance, instead of workers manually washing pallets, a pallet washer and dryer can better clean plastic pallets and reduce the effort required during this process. Therefore, a worker can finish washing and drying pallets more quickly, freeing them for other warehouse tasks.
2. Prevent Employee Burnout
When workers burn out, they become less productive. Burnout can manifest as fatigue toward the end of a shift when their bodies get tired from hours of manual work, or it can occur after years of working under stress. To avoid physical strain, train workers in proper lifting techniques and use equipment that aids them in lifting. By helping prevent physical stress in employees, you may also reduce the long-term mental strain some may feel after years of working in a physically demanding position.
3. Track Products With a Warehouse Management System
Know where every product is in a warehouse and how many items you have with a warehouse management system (WMS) that combines with proper inventory control. A warehouse management system provides the software needed to track your warehouse operations. You can also incorporate this solution with barcode scanners for products pulled for shipping to keep inventory constantly updated.
4. Use Warehouse Layout Tips for the Building Materials Industry to Optimize Flow
Structure your warehouse to reduce the time needed for picking orders. Your layout should minimize how long workers need to travel to get the most demanded goods. Place highly demanded goods at lower levels closer to the shipping area. Store rarely used products on higher racks to increase storage space in your warehouse. Optimizing the flow and reducing the steps required for pulling orders makes your facility more efficient.
5. Choose Efficient Order Picking Equipment
Help your workers to pick orders more efficiently and accurately with relevant equipment. Barcode scanners reduce errors in picking by verifying to the worker that they’ve pulled the correct item. Pallet trucks make moving large loads across a warehouse quicker and decrease strain.
5 Steps to Increase Workplace Safety at Your Building Material Warehouse
Worker safety optimizes operations by preventing injuries that can take valuable employees off the warehouse floor. Plus, safer facilities encourage worker retention that can mitigate issues with labor shortages. Construction industry solutions that emphasize safety are just as essential to a warehouse’s operation as materials handling equipment is.
Step 1: Know How to Design a Building Materials Warehouse That Optimizes Safety
First, understand the principles behind safe warehouse design. Alert workers through signage that indicates proper movement directions, vehicle-only areas and fall or trip hazards. These signs allow individuals to be aware of potential risks they may not immediately notice.
Another way to improve safety is using barriers to keep people from walking through forklift traffic lanes. These barriers prevent collisions between people and vehicles, which can cause severe harm or damage to loads carried by lift trucks.
Step 2: Optimize Your Existing Warehouse Layout
Use your existing warehouse to find ways to reduce wasted movements and potentially hazardous areas. Additionally, make first-aid kits readily visible and available throughout the building. The facility must also have proper ventilation to improve safety and increase worker comfort.
Step 3: Upgrade Outdated Racking Methods, Structures and Equipment
Overloading shelving creates a serious safety hazard that could lead to fatalities, severe injuries, product loss, damage to warehouse equipment and a rise in insurance rates.
If you have older storage components, you may need to upgrade. The equipment required for building materials production includes racking, decking and shelving with capacities that can hold more than the loads stored on them.
If you don’t know the load capacity for your existing storage shelving or racks, upgrade to new products that provide clear information. The heavy materials stored make the weight capacity of racking and other equipment even more critical to know to avoid accidents and injuries.
Step 4: Train Employees on Warehouse Safety Tips
Workers need training on warehouse safety, including dress codes for working inside the facility. Loose clothing or clothes with dangling components can become caught in lift equipment or between heavy products. Having a dress code prevents garments from getting caught and trapping a worker.
Other safety training should include using the correct material handling methods, such as when to find assistance for lifting objects. Anytime your facility needs to change safety procedures, schedule retraining for employees. Also, implement continuous training on warehouse safety to keep workers aware of the required standards.
Workers need to know how to appropriately prevent and respond to fires. Fires are especially problematic for facilities storing wood or paint products, which are highly flammable and can quickly spread the fire. Conduct drills for emergency situations like fires or natural disasters to ensure everyone knows what they need to do in these instances.
Step 5: Schedule Regular Inspections and Maintenance Checks
Regular inspections and maintenance checks of heavy equipment and warehouse storage units can prevent safety problems. Schedule maintenance based on the manufacturer’s recommendations for the equipment and track inspections. Waiting until an accident or equipment failure happens wastes time and leads to delayed shipments and revenue losses. Dedicate individuals to maintaining warehouse equipment to avoid taking time away from others.
Another aspect of the ideal maintenance schedule is checking the protective equipment individuals use. Verify that first-aid kits are properly stocked and personal protective equipment (PPE) provided for workers is in good condition.
Learn How Cherry’s Equipment Can Improve Your Warehouse Effectiveness
Cherry’s Industrial Equipment has multiple products that can solve the inherent issues faced by building materials warehouses. These solutions help make the facility more efficient while promoting construction warehouse safety.
Instead of worrying about sourcing wood pallets or paying higher prices for them, consider a plastic alternative. Plastic pallets are exempt from the ISPM 15 standard and could serve as a viable option for facilities struggling to acquire heat-treated wood pallets. Plus, these pallets avoid the issues of fluctuating wood prices and can be sanitized, while wood pallets cannot.
Equipment for construction industry warehouses that facilitates pallet transfers can make the task faster and prevent worker injury. Instead of shipping the entire pallet with a damaged product, repalletizing the load and replacing the spoiled goods can reduce the chances of a refused shipment. Pallet inverters make the transfer of product from one pallet to another much easier. These machines can also make replacing damaged pallets faster.
Stretch wrappers are another solution for securing loads of cement or other bagged products to keep the items tightly held together for safer, more secure shipping. With automated stretch wrappers, the wrap gets pulled tighter for a better hold than a worker can create manually.
To save workers from injuries, equipment that reduces bending at the waist can help prevent strain. Lift tables raise heavy loads to a position that is more comfortable for workers to interact with. Instead of bending at the waist to pick up products, workers can access the items from waist height, reducing the chances of back strain or injury.
Automating labor-intensive processes can reduce time spent on these tasks and prevent worker injuries that could impact the number of available employees. For example, instead of manually moving materials to change pallets, an automatic pallet changer can do the work faster and with less risk to workers.
Contact Cherry’s Industrial Equipment Today for Storage and Shipping Solutions for Building Materials Warehouses
Trust Cherry’s Industrial Equipment for your building materials or construction equipment warehouse. Our machinery reduces the effort and time needed to complete tasks in your facility. Search our easily navigable website to find the solutions you need, or contact one of our material handling experts for advice on the right equipment needed to solve your specific concerns.
After ordering from us, you won’t have to worry about being left to navigate your equipment alone. We offer technical support and several other customer care options to help you with anything you might need. Our services include assistance with installing and maintaining your purchase. To get your team on board with effectively using our equipment, we can also help with training and startup.
At Cherry’s, we put our focus on exceeding our customers’ expectations in product quality and customer service. Find out how we can solve your warehouse concerns for optimizing storage and retrieval of building materials.