The Importance of Industrial Racking Safety In The Warehouse

Have you thought about how dangerous a warehouse can be? Forklifts, unstable stacks of pallets, and other equipment can create a disasterous accident for employees who work in warehouses day in and day out. As we talk about the importance of pallet rack safety in the warehouse, we discuss the different features and products that you could use to help prevent inventory loss and injuries or even worse fatalities in the work place. A video shows an incident where a warehouse facility didn’t have proper control of their pallet racks and a mass amount of inventory fell on multiple employees and the damage it caused destroyed a huge amount of inventory. 

Though nobody got hurt their was a massive amount of inventory loss and they lost a lot of productivity time cleaning up the warehouse from the pallet rack collapse. BSC partners with companies to keep incidences like this from occurring. Some of the following products are used in warehouses to prevent injury, inventory loss, and damaged equipment.

 1. Industrial Guard Rails 

Industrial guard rails is basically a barrier that can be placed around mezzanines, pallet racks, large equipment, etc. to keep from bumping into them when using fork lifts or other machinery that can be too large to see far away. It can be easy to accidentally bump into a stack of pallet rack when you are operating large motorized vehicles and you can’t hardly see in front of you but hitting something even with the smallest impact can damage a very expensive machinery or worse cause a pallet rack collapse like the video above. These guard rails are also offered as End of Aisle rack protection products as well and wall bumper rails to reduce damage to the interior walls while storing product or staging pallets prior to shipment.

 2. Column Post Protectors

These post protectors sheild rack uprights from accidental damage by forklifts, protecting and prolonging the life of your rack, which protects your inventory and most importantly, your employees.

3. Building Column Protectors 

Column protectors can ease the severity of the potential impact on the structural integrity of the column and building in the event of a collison. If you’re not familiar with the work inside a warehouse this might sound strange to you but collisons do occur. It can be hard to hear someone coming with all the loud noises from other machinery or the one you’re using. Building column protectors can also act as a visual reminder to drivers, whether they’re guiding a forklift, maintenance vehicle, floor scrubbers, stackers, or electric pallet trucks, particularly in low-light and limited-visibility conditions. The building column protectors come in bright and vibrant colors to refrain from someone missing it all together. They also have reflective straps so if the visibility is low the reflective straps will help guide drivers away from that area. 

4. Industrial Handrails

In an industrial and manufacturing environment, industrial handrails offer the protection that’s expected in today’s work environments where on-the-job safety is a true priority. Handrails serve a handful of purposes. Industrial handrails may act as a visual symbol and physical barrier that indicate a specific area is off-limits or should be entered with caution. In addition, a handrail can guide people along the edge of a staircase or keep them from inadvertently stepping down to another level, such as a recessed dock. If someone is carrying a big load of inventory by hand they may not be able to see in front or beside them. Handrails can act as a guide for those transferring inventory from one place to another or handrails can inform drivers people may or may not be coming out of that general area. 

5. Safety Gates

Safety gates such as self closing safety gates, self closing double swing gates, mezzanine pallet safety gates, rotating dock gates, driveway entrance gates, dock door gates, dock stop gates, mezzanine pivot gates, and others all serve a similar purpose. To allow you to get one thing at a time and close the area off by the gate installed. Employee safety is important and we know that they still require relatively easy access to specific areas but gates serve the purpose of keeping things from continuing to flow. The rotating dock gate, for instance, can keep forklifts from entering a non-restricted area or an area where other people are working and machinery as large as a forklift could injure them or affect their work productivity.

6. Bollards

Bollards can be used to control and direct traffic and even stop or prohibit the passage of traffic in virtually any designated areas, whether it’s in a building or an exterior space such as a driveway, road or parking lot. Bollards are always effective and far more impactful than signage or warning lights, because they are tangible, physical barriers. Drivers may be tempted to ignore or defy other indicators, but they won’t try to get around, though or over a bollard because they recognize the inherent physical risks and the likelihood that they could do serious harm to themselves or their vehicles.  

7. Rack Protection

As we discuss the importance of pallet rack safety some specific products we have seen keep from damaging inventory or the pallet themselves are curved end of the aisle rack guards, low profile rack guard with legs, low profile rack guards with base plates, formed end of aisle rack guards, seismic post protectors, hidden anchor post protectors, side mounted post protectors, and structural post protectors. Barriers such as these keep from damaging pallet racks and can help support them if bumped into by machinery. 

Check out this video highlighting some of the safety products that were covered.

Pallet rack safety is very important. Ensuring your inventory or assets and employees are always safe should be top priority in your warehouse. Contact a local BSC representative at 205-988-3300 for more information.