Warehouses are notoriously dangerous places to work and keeping employees safe is priority number one. One of the best ways to keep warehouse employees out of harm's way is to use digital signage throughout your facility.
Digital signage is an excellent tool to visually communicate real-time dangers as well as keep employees educated on how to stay safe in a warehouse setting. In this post we're going to go over the various ways your company can use digital signage to keep everyone safe year round.
1. Training and Education
Keeping employees safe is all about communication. Training, team meetings, 1-2-1 meetings with managers and digital signage all play a role in making sure employees are fully aware of warehouse dangers. Digital signage is a key tool for educating employees on how to prevent accidents and how to take a proactive role in preventing them from ever happening.
How Digital Signage Can Help
Digital signage provides the perfect system for regular team training sessions. Gather the team and watch a training video or have a weekly presenter go over a training keynote so that everyone is on the same page. Digital signage can be set up so that it’s easy to see and always displays information in a large and clear manner - perfect for group training.
2. Falling Product and Supplies
Most warehouses use shelving systems to store products and supplies. Often these shelving systems can be a few stories high which means anything that falls from them poses a substantial danger to anyone walking below.
How Digital Signage Can Help
A simple sign that reminds employees to look above them while they work, is a good way to keep them safe as well as keeping everyone on the floor proactively looking for potential warehouse dangers. Chances are someone will notice a box or palette that is hanging a little too far over an edge of a shelf and can call in to have the danger rectified.
3. Slip Hazards
One of the most common workplace injuries are slip and fall accidents. And warehouses are no exception. Most warehouse floors are smooth and slippery which make them prime locations for slip and fall accidents.
How Digital Signage Can Help
Digital signage is a great way to inform employees of recent spills in certain areas as well as provide daily reminders to watch for wet floors and how to report such incidents. Warehouses that use digital signage on every aisle are perfect for displaying these location specific alerts.
4. Pathogens
Pathogens are biological hazards that come from bacteria or viruses. Viral transmission can occur from employees being in close proximity to other infected employees as well as touching surfaces with viruses on them. Bacterial transmission usually occurs by touching surfaces with bacteria on them or eating food that hasn’t been brought to a safe temperature.
Additionally, many warehouse bathrooms will have bio waste (sharps waste) receptacles for people who need to take injections during the day. Employees should understand the hazards associated with bio waste and how it can be harmful to their coworkers.
How Digital Signage Can Help
Get started with this digital signage template here
A seasonal digital signage campaign reminding employees to stay home when they feel sick is a great way to keep employee infections to a minimum. During pandemics, digital signage can display tips and procedures for how to interact with product and employees while on the premises. Specialized presentations can play during certain intervals throughout the day to maximize awareness and education.
5. Forklifts
Forklifts are a common vehicle inside warehouses and present numerous dangers. Not only can they run into employees causing serious injuries, they can tip over and cause injuries to the forklift operators.
How Digital Signage Can Help
Digital signage can be use to video different areas of the warehouse so that forklift operators and warehouse employees can see where forklifts are operating. This can help for those working close to aisle ends where there might be blind spots. (especially for the workers wearing headphones who can’t hear forklifts that are nearby!).
6. Stacked Boxes and Palettes
It’s common for product to be offloaded from trucks or shelves and stacked around a warehouse. This is one the most dangerous and often overlooked safety issues facing warehouses. These stacks are rarely secured and are haphazardly created during busy schedules. They can tip over and fall on employees. Forklifts can run into them and tip them over as well.
How Digital Signage Can Help
In areas where it’s common for boxes to stack up throughout the day, digital signage can display warning signs in those areas reminding people to not only keep boxes to a certain height, but to urge them to proactively adjust stacks that are over the height limit.
7. Sharp Objects and Tools
It’s common for box cutters, tape dispensers and other tools to be laying around warehouses. These tools are sharp and can cut employees leading to down time, workers compensation claims and infections.
How Digital Signage Can Help
Sometimes a simple reminder around the warehouse is all that’s needed to keep employees aware of sharp tools and objects. It could be the reminder someone needs to see right before they almost sit on a box with a box cutter on top of it!
8. Corners
Corners present two major dangers. The first being the blind spot created by warehouse shelving and hallway corners. Employees can run into each other and get hurt. Secondly, warehouse shelving can cut or trip employees who may be rounding corners too closely.
How Digital Signage Can Help
One great use case for digital signage is to set up live video feeds showing warehouse aisle and intersection traffic. Displays can be set up at aisle ends showing traffic coming from multiple directions on screen.
Specific monitors can also be programmed to display “Watch Corner” signage in potentially dangerous areas. That’s one of the beauty’s of digital signage: you can program and schedule your displays for different campaigns and tasks. They don’t have to display the same message at the same time!
9. Semi Trucks and Big Rigs
Not all dangers are inside warehouses. There are plenty of dangers in loading docks and near warehouse doors. Plenty of workers have been injured by a truck backing up or by a hydraulic loading ramp lowering on them.
How Digital Signage Can Help
Having digital signage outdoors or visible in loading docks can be the only method to safely communicate to warehouse employees and truck drivers during the offloading of incoming shipments. Loading docks can be noisy places, so having large visual communication is a great way to keep everyone informed during these activities.
10. Lifting
Warehouse work usually requires lifting packages, boxes and heavy items. Countless people-hours are lost to warehouse back injury as well as plenty of workers compensation claims.
How Digital Signage Can Help
Digital signage can be programmed to schedule through various employee safety tips throughout the day where visual instructions can display lifting techniques, do’s, don’ts and back health trivia. And as always, digital signage can inform employees of upcoming safety training classes.
11. Fire
Like any building, warehouses can catch fire. Especially if the warehouse is storing flammable materials or if certain processes take place inside the warehouse that can increase fire risk (e.g. machining, woodworking or the presence of a foundry).
How Digital Signage Can Help
Fire alerts can be pushed via CAP alerts software. If a fire has started in one part of the building or complex, the digital signage throughout the facility can instantly display a fire alert that can instruct people to evacuate. Additionally, digital signage can be used as instructional guidance during fire drills.
12. Earthquakes
Earthquakes are particularly dangerous for warehouse workers considering the possibility of products and boxes falling on employees. The Western United States is particularly vulnerable to earthquake dangers since it’s where the majority of large earthquakes occur in North America. Not to mention, most imports from China (the majority of imports in North America) are entering ports on the western side of the United States.
How Digital Signage Can Help
Creating signage that explains what employees should do during an earthquake is a great way to communicate what to do during this type of emergency. Additionally, ShakeAlert (an early warning earthquake detection system for the Western U.S.) can soon be integrated with your CAP Alert system to give everyone at your company a heads up that an earthquake is coming. These alerts can be automatically broadcasted to all displays in the warehouse.
13. Chemical Hazards
Certain warehouses store hazardous chemicals such as acids, heavy metals and even noxious gases. Safety precautions in warehouses that store chemicals should go above and beyond normal expectations. Not only are the warehouse employees’ safety a concern, but the surrounding neighborhood and cities can be impacted by chemical spills and explosions.
How Digital Signage Can Help
It’s critically important that warehouse workers know how to read material data safety sheets and corresponding codes. Warehouse digital signage can be configured to display this information on a rotating schedule and even provide a platform for annual material data safety sheet training.
14. Heat Exhaustion
During summer months, warehouses can get extremely hot and heat exhaustion can become a serious issue. Not all warehouses are air conditioned and occasionally air conditioning can break down (or subject to power outages).
How Digital Signage Can Help
Digital signage can inform employees what the signs of heat exhaustion are. Warehouse managers or safety departments can run campaigns that give important tips that keep employees safe from the effects of heat exhaustion (e.g. drink water, take breaks, use cooling wraps, etc.).
15. Emergency (of any kind)
An emergency can happen at any moment. One great thing about Rise Vision digital signage is that it’s integrated with CAP Alert emergency notification systems. Emergency digital signage can be displayed any time a CAP Alert is initiated.
Get started with this CAP Alert digital signage template here
16. Exit Signage
Digital signage is a perfect solution for displaying exit signage and providing employees with an emergency exit map they can get familiar with.
Conclusion
Digital signage is the 21st century solution to keeping warehouse workers informed, safe and educated. It’s also the perfect way to conduct warehouse training or group meetings without having to move computers and TVs around. Rise Vision makes digital signage easy! Try a free trial on us today by clicking the button below.
