Chapter 7 Notes

Safe Material Handling and Equipment Operation

This chapter explains logistics safety, a broad and varied subject based on countless factors and variables. In these notes, we’ll go over many of these topics, such as Manual Material Handling, Maintenance, and Training.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, manual material handling is defined as: “Seizing, holding, grasping, turning or otherwise working with the hand or hands. Fingers are involved only to the extent that they are an extension of the hand, such as to turn a switch or to shift automobile gears.”

Manual handling of products and materials will face you with many threats. For example awkward positions, high amounts of force, and repetitive movements. All of these things can cause injuries to the employee.

First, you must size up the load. For example, ask the question: “Is the load light enough for me to lift?”, “Is it stable?”, and “Is it balanced?” to assure safety for yourself while lifting.

Next, you should plan the route. Find a clean route, a good place to put it, and somewhere to stop and rest. This will guarantee a quick and effective lifting period.

After that, you should establish a base of support. Separate your legs to about shoulder-width in a staggered stance.

This is where the steps become crucial. Bend your knees while picking up. This will help you massively to avoid back injury.

Get a grip, no not mentally. use your hands, with gloves if needed. The glove type may vary based on the load you’re trying to lift.

Lift with your legs, not your back, you should bend your knees, pick up the box with your back straight, and lift while unbending your knees upwards.

Don’t Twist or Turn your body. instead, you should pivot. Step to one side or the other to turn. This prevents you from twisting your lower back and crushing it.

Do NOT lift from the floor if possible. If you must lift from the floor, then do not bend at the waist. This will ensure your safety during the process.

PPE, as covered in the last chapter, is Personal Protective Equipment. There are many pieces of equipment that fall under PPE, but they can be broken down in the following categories: Eyes, Ears, Head, Respiratory Protection, Hands, and Foot. It is controlled and regulated by OSHA, but supplied by the employer. Employees require training on all types of PPE, which type is required and when it should be used, how to wear/adjust it etc.

The safe use of mechanical material handling equipment is vital to any logistics environment. Not respecting the rules and regulations for the type of equipment you’re using could have deadly consequences.

A way to ensure that equipment is safe is to monitor it constantly to watch for signs of malfunction or hazards. Material handling equipment must be consistently checked to make sure that employees are safe when around or operating machinery.

Maintenance is a large part of safety for any equipment in a logistics environment, it helps with time-saving, employee safety, and cost reduction, among other things. There are two basic types of maintenance, corrective and preventative. A third, predictive, is becoming a common trend in the modern day and promises to become ever more relevant as time progresses.

I will give a basic rundown of the types of maintenance.

Corrective

Also known as “Repair”, it is fixing a failure or malfunction after it happens

Preventative

Also known as “Upkeep”, it is servicing equipment regularly to ensure up-to-par performance and to detect possible malfunctions, hazards, or defects that may arise. Usually, it involves scheduled maintenance.

Predictive

The most precise type of maintenance, it uses data collected by sensors on equipment to watch for patterns and anticipate a problem before it occurs. This helps keep costs down in the long run because only the maintenance that is needed is performed. However it requires a database of information to be functional, and that takes time to build.