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Ever operated a sweeper or scrubber? You know, one of those big machines with the big round sweeper brushes on it, there is usually a little round one sticking out on the right-hand side. On a combination unit it’ll have a long squeegee bowed around the back of it. Hi all, I’m Marty with Warehouse and Operations as a Career and that is just one subject that amazed me this week.
So, I’m going to try and shorten a long story here, I have a lot of other things I wanted to talk about today but, well, this one came up and I thought it was worth noting. It all started when I received a phone call regarding a question about PIT. Did a person have to be certified and go through a PIT class to operate a Sweeper/Scrubber unit. Oh my gosh, when I answered No not actually, but they did have to be trained and observed on it. Well, before I could even finish my thought the young lady started going into a long, and might I say very loud, conversation or situation she had had with her boss, supervisor or somebody that had told her she could not operate it because she was not certified to drive it. Ok, it took me a minute to get her calmed down. Once I had accomplished that I wanted to clarify my answer to her. I told her that although the sweeper or scrubber did not necessarily fall under OSHA’s 29cfr1910.178 standard, as with any type of equipment or machine, a person should not, and I’ll go ahead and say cannot, operate anything in the workplace unless they have been trained and instructed to do so. Period.
A quick story, all of our warehouse tools are dangerous if not properly used. I’m preparing a class on how to properly use a hand truck, or 2-wheel dolly, for the driver helper position. As I was gathering a few testimonials from the pros, things like how did you learn and what do you wish someone had told you before you took the job? One of the funniest stories was a gentleman said when he took the job, he figured using a hand truck was simple. Stack product on it, tilt it back, and push it forward. He had moved his own refrigerator with a moving dolly once, simple. He shared that his first week he was just stacking his drivers dollies for him and doing it as the driver had instructed him. He felt like he’d learned quite a bit and wanted to help his driver by stacking and running a load down the ramp and into the customer for him. Well, things did not go quite as he had planned. He stated his stacking was great. He broke the load over; it was much heavier than he had imagined it would be. Anyway, he pushed it forward. As he was about to enter the ramp, he thought about how careful he needed to be as there was only about 1.5 inches to play with on either side from his dolly wheels and the upraised sides of the ramp. Well, about a quarter of the way down the ramp, sure enough, his right wheel touched the side, of course it locked up or stopped, causing his estimated 250lb load to pull him forward and to the right. Forcing all the freight and himself to fall from the side, about 6 ft to the ground. Now he was extremely fortunate, and he didn’t get hurt and not too much product was damaged, but his driver was not impressed by his motivation and enthusiasm.
His driver expressed how dangerous a hand truck can be. It looks simply but he could have broken his femur bone with that fall. The driver explained that he had seen 2 people do the same thing with much worse of an outcome.
I jumped of subject, but I wanted to show how even the simplest piece of equipment can hurt us.
Where was I, oh yeah? So, this young lady’s supervisor had told her that she could not operate their sweeper/scrubber unit because she was not certified to drive it. Her point was that she did not need to be certified to drive it. Once again that certify word is being misused. I cannot stress enough the importance of training.
I walked her through it, explained the high points to her and she went back to her boss, and they worked it out. She has since been trained and is an operator now. She did state after her training that she had no idea how much responsibility the position had and how much damage an inexperienced operator could do or the cost of damaging the brushes or squeegee.
Next up, I wanted to talk about Eye Wash Stations. I think everyone would agree our eyes are important to us. Hense why all facilities are required to provide their employees with an eyewash station. Now these can be piped in units where we push a lever and water is shot up and into our eyes, or even gravity fed units where we pull down a base with two eyelet dispensers that are being gravity fed a water solution from an onboard reservoir or even a few bottles with squirt tops that we can use to flush out our eyes within the event of an emergency. And these bottles are what brought up today’s topic.
Yes, it is important, and required that we have an eyewash station identified at our facility. But we are also required to keep them sanitary and available for use. This week I heard about an orientation tour given to a new member of member of management. The supervisor was really proud of his crew and their facility, and they always do a great job. The tour was going great, until they reached the eyewash station. There were 3 bottles, which was fine as the station was built as a 3-bottle station but the dust and dirt that were on the bottles! From what I heard; they could not have been used without running water over them to clean them up a little. Now of course they were immediately cleaned up and placed back in their rack but ladies and gentlemen, I’m sure someone had walked by them before and seen that they needed attention, right? Could we associate a failure with training here as well? Had the front-line crew not been trained regarding the eyewash stations!
And now a small pet peeve of mine. I was talking with an associate about how a picture is worth a thousand words when it comes to an audit at our facilities. I visited a warehouse and every piece of equipment had paint knocked off of it. The equipment was a bit aged but had been well maintenance. The bollard post throughout the building needed painting and had been knicked up pretty bad. Now this was an older facility, well ran and I knew their safety culture was very strong. Especially where equipment and equipment usage were concerned. I noticed a new hire being shown around and he was checking out the equipment. It just looked bad. The Op’s guy here, well, he just doesn’t believe that time and the expense of paint is needed. He doesn’t see any benefit to it.
I’d like to state that he is wrong. They do work safe there, and they do provide a safe work environment for their employees, but the equipment and the building should, no, must be realized as an important part of that work environment, a motivator, a point of pride for the associates. Just as it’s so much easier to work in a clean and organized work area so is that feeling of pride in one’s equipment and facility.
I worked with a gentleman for about 17 years, the most professional forklift operator I’ve ever met. He purchased his own Raymond Corporation paint, to touch up his lift every week. He took pride in it. At that same facility, every once and a while the front-line management team would take a Friday afternoon and go out and touch up all the corners, bollard post and rack ends. They all took pride in their facility. And that facility was the corporation’s number one operations and organization.
Strayed again but that Op’s guy is wrong. Pride, in my opinion, is motivation. Could that be a training opportunity?
If we look around us, and we’re honest with ourselves, I believe we can all recognize training opportunities daily. Not that a course need developing for everything. But we should go ahead and step over to a teammate when we see them doing something that could be done safer or more efficiently and talk with them about it. Train them!
Training doesn’t have to be all formal. Sometimes helping is training right!
Well, I hope I’ve given you something to think about and maybe act on. Were all in this together!
Until next week, ask a friend to subscribe to the podcast, visit our Facebook and Twitter feeds and by all means be safe in all that you do.