Case Study: Retrieving Stock In A Retail Warehouse

This post marks the debut of a new feature here at The Industrial Athlete. It takes hypothetical situations in the workplace and asks you to diagnose what could be done to improve the situations from a health, safety, and ergonomic standpoint.

For our first case study, we have a retail stock room where items of varying weight and bulk are retrieved. The details:

• Currently, ladders are used to access high shelves. These ladders however, are few in number, and all of them are heavy (40 lbs +). Moving them alone, as is often the case, is dangerous, and no less fatiguing.
• The hallways between the shelving units are narrow, and carts often get stuck trying to turn around in them.
• The carts, also few in number, are not adjustable, and one of them is a small box cart with a rope for a handle.
• The doorway into the stock room area often swings open without warning, due to the lack of visibility from the outside in.
• In the receiving area, shipments often clutter up the floor in front of accessways to the stock shelves, making transport difficult.
  
  

Using this specific information, along with general knowledge regarding operations in a retail stock room environment, identify ways that this workspace can be made safer and more efficient.

Answers will be posted on Tuesday!

NOTE: Sunday Spotlight will become Tuesday Spotlight this week, due to a trip being made out of town by yours truly over the weekend. See you next week!