Generating consistently high levels of productivity without sacrificing the health and safety of your employees is a challenge warehouse leaders face worldwide. Fortunately, the solution may be more straightforward than you think: ergonomic material handling solutions.
Optimizing your workspace with ergonomic equipment and procedures can create an environment that promotes productivity and prioritizes employee well-being. From reducing the risk of injuries to improving accuracy and efficiency, ergonomic solutions can profoundly impact your business operations.
Today, we'll explore how ergonomics can transform your workplace. We'll discuss the connection between good health and high performance, the high cost of workplace injuries, and the many benefits of ergonomic warehouse solutions.
Plus, we'll provide practical tips and strategies for implementing ergonomic solutions in your own business, so you can start seeing the benefits for yourself.
Get ready to boost productivity, improve employee satisfaction, and create a safer, more efficient workplace with ergonomic material handling solutions.
The Connection Between Good Health and High Performance in the Workplace
Google "how to improve warehouse productivity", and you'll be confronted with thousands of complicated tips, tricks, and strategies. But what if achieving the next level of performance was as simple as prioritizing the health and safety of your workers?
Ergonomics is the science of designing work environments, equipment, and tasks to minimize physical strain on workers, improve their efficiency and productivity, and enhance their comfort and safety. Ergonomics is important in any industry, but in warehousing, it's absolutely essential.
Why?
The repetitive, demanding, and frequently physically awkward nature of warehouse work creates a perfect storm for joint, muscle, and skeletal injuries.
Even if injuries aren't immediately apparent, the continuous strain your workers experience without proper ergonomic support accumulates over time, creating chronic stress on the body and reducing performance, productivity, and morale.
Fortunately, a warehouse operation that prioritizes the health and safety of its staff by implementing ergonomic material handling solutions can eliminate these pervasive and compounding issues that impact far too many warehouses.
Instead of dealing with injuries and inefficiencies, you’ll gain a significant competitive edge over your rivals thanks to steady productivity, boosted performance, and enhanced operational efficiency. Investing in the well-being of your workers doesn't just benefit them - it benefits your entire business.
The High Cost of Workplace Injuries: Why Ergonomics is Essential
Non-fatal injuries cost the warehousing and transportation industries a painful $84 million dollars a week in 2021. Unfortunately, this figure is only expected to rise due to the massive uptick in hiring in these sectors over the last three years.
Material handling accidents and repetitive actions like lifting, pushing, pulling, and reaching are the second and third most common types of injuries in warehouses. That means warehouse operations that don't implement ergonomic handling solutions should be concerned about when the next accident will happen rather than if it will happen.
Fortunately, staging your warehouse workspaces with the proper ergonomic support systems can significantly reduce the rate and severity of these common injuries. Considering that the average cost of worker injuries has climbed to $38,000 in direct costs and a staggering $150,000+ in indirect costs, investing in this straightforward improvement for your warehouse is worth it.
From Slouching to Soaring: How Ergonomics Can Transform Your Workplace
Ergonomic material handling solutions aren’t just the answer to lackluster operational efficiency - they’re also the key to healthier, happier, and more engaged employees.
Ergonomic solutions kick-start a domino effect that impacts your entire company. Let’s take a look at three ways they accomplish this:
1. Stronger Employee Morale
Investing in ergonomic handling solutions leads to a more positive and healthy work environment, resulting in happier and more energetic employees.
Employees who see their employer investing in workplace safety are also far more likely to feel seen and valued, leading to improved workplace culture, higher job satisfaction, and reduced turnover.
2. Improved Quality Control
Poor ergonomics impacts productivity and increases the frequency of mistakes during the fulfillment and throughput process.
Employees distracted by nagging pains and developing injuries created by heavy lifting and awkward pulling, reaching, twisting, and bending movements are more likely to make costly mistakes. Ergonomic handling solutions help keep your employees healthy, engaged, and focused, leading to improved quality control and far fewer errors on the pick floor.
3. Reduced Retention, Recruiting, and Training Expenses
On top of happier employees and improved quality control, workplace ergonomics can also save your warehouse operation significant money.
Poor ergonomics in warehouses leads to injuries, burnout, and worker dissatisfaction. The result? Absenteeism, sky-high turnover, climbing retention and recruitment costs, and an endless cycle of new hire training.
Eliminating these issues with straightforward workplace ergonomic enhancements can significantly reduce expenses, increasing financial stability and profitability.
UNEX: Your Partner for Ergonomic Solutions
UNEX offers warehouse storage solutions that transform how our partners optimize their space, increase employee productivity, and achieve sustainable success.
Our products prioritize ergonomics to ensure maximum comfort and safety for your workers. Let’s look at a few of our most popular products for maximizing ergonomics, productivity, and profitability.
FlowCell
FlowCell flow racks are an innovative solution for lean manufacturing that are designed to boost efficiency while ensuring maximum ergonomic comfort for your workers. These racks are flexible, modular, and easy to assemble, eliminating the need for excessive reaching, bending, twisting, or lifting — one of the leading causes of work-related injuries.
FlowCell increases storage density by up to 50%, allowing you to significantly expand your throughput while maintaining a high level of accuracy. Implementing FlowCell can lead to significant production efficiency gains of up to 30%, reducing your operational costs and improving your operation’s bottom line.
Our innovative FlowCell flow racks can be reconfigured easily to accommodate a wide range of line and process changes, making organizing and streamlining your warehouse operations effortless. With FlowCell, you can promote accuracy, efficiency, and organization throughout your manufacturing process while ensuring your workers remain happy, healthy, and engaged with their daily tasks and responsibilities.
SpeedCell
If you want to improve ergonomics while maximizing storage density in your warehouse, you need SpeedCell.
SpeedCell is a high-density storage solution that empowers you to store more SKUs in less space while simultaneously setting the stage for more efficient and accurate picking outcomes. Warehouses invested in SpeedCell shelving enjoyed a 40-60% increase in storage density while simultaneously reducing labor costs by up to 40%.
The high-density, ultra-organized nature of our SpeedCell solutions is a proven path toward improved ergonomics, optimized storage, enhanced productivity & accuracy, and reduced overhead.
SpanTrack
SpanTrack effectively tackles the most common issues and injuries during warehouse order picking by minimizing or eliminating harmful repetitive motions on the pick floor.
SpanTrack's innovative design ensures that workers no longer have to bend, reach, or lift heavy cases with limited visibility, especially when cases are stored deep inside pallets. SpanTrack's simple gravity-fed conveyor system automatically moves materials to the point of pick — saving time, minimizing pick travel, and eliminating unnecessary strain on your staff.
SpanTrack also guarantees that materials arrive for picking firmly within the "Golden Zone" - an area above the knees, below the shoulders, and near the body that provides maximum ergonomic support and comfort. Implementing SpanTrack is the perfect way to improve worker safety, boost productivity, and maximize efficiency in your warehouse.
Don’t Wait - Enhance Your Warehouse Ergonomics Today with UNEX
To learn more about improving the ergonomics of your operation, or to chat with one of our space optimization experts about our industry-leading solutions, contact us today.
