Whether you operate a factory, warehouse or fulfilment centre, good quality labour is often in short supply
As demands go up, workers, particularly skilled, motivated, productive ones, are often difficult to find and hard to retain.
With eCommerce having transformed businesses, this has escalated the demand for pickers, packers and assembly workers. These workers are the backbone of any eCommerce operation, so keeping them happy, healthy, and productive is of the utmost importance.
Unfortunately, the jobs or pickers and packers can be physically and mentally demanding, which in the wrong environment can lead to workplace injury or general ill-health.
Whilst it is possible to pick up temporary staff to help you cope with worker absences, temporary staff will still need to be trained.
Nobody wants their staff to be physically tired and mentally burnt out, you can only push workers so far before there’s a dip in productivity.
This is where automation & process aids come to save the day.
Reduced manual handling increases employee retention
Reducing the requirements for lifting items throughout the operation drastically improves employee well being.
Using handling equipment of any form to take the weight of the load is always the best solution. This reduces the risk of employee injury drastically and improves processing time for processing orders.
Conveyors are the go-to solution for transporting packets, parcels, and components with ease.
Reduce labour movements with Automation
Finding a solution that reduces wasted time can lead to large savings – but don’t forget to consider the long term.
The addition of a gravity roller conveyor alone can save process time and be money well spent.
However, that unpowered conveyor may prove to be not as effective down the line as order or product volumes increase.
Perhaps a solution where the unpowered conveyor can be reconfigured, future-proofed or converted to a driven conveyor at a later date would be a better, more long term solution.
An investment now will show long term benefit as the introduction of “suitable” conveyors reduces manual handling and simply makes the job easier.
Taking into account long term flexibility is always the best solution.
An experienced process partner in this area will always offer reconfigurable equipment and ongoing site support as they will live by the mantra “Buy cheap – buy twice.”
Improving the working environment
A well designed ergonomic work environment with suitable lighting is a nicer place to work.
Not only isthe workforce more productive, it’s also potentially an additional selling feature when customers visit your facility. Why would a customer want to do business with a company whose packing or production area is – for lack of better words – a bit grim?
