Veterans of warehouse work often forget what it was like to be a novice. After years of working in the stacks, it’s easy to rely on experience, practice, and muscle memory when it comes to proper warehouse behaviour. It’s like driving a car – once you’ve done it for years, you don’t have to keep all of the rules at the forefront of your consciousness at all times. There are so many important rules to driving, but you don’t think about them anymore.
The problem arises when it comes to training someone new. Experience, practice, and muscle memory don’t translate well to other people. You need step-by-step instructions, clear rules and guidelines, or at least a transparent list of what to do and what not to do. Experience and muscle memory will eventually come to them as well, but at the beginning, new people rely on the experienced staff to teach them what they need to know.
Consider the principles involved in
safely stacking a warehouse. Some of it is intuitively obvious… some of it is common sense… and yet you can’t rely on those when it comes to teaching employees who are new to it.
Here’s an example of a list of guidelines:
Do stack the heaviest items at the bottom of a stack. You don’t want to crush the lighter items, and you want to make sure the stack is as stable as possible. Putting the lightest objects at the top decreases the chance of a stack toppling – and if it does for some reason topple, it’s the lightest objects that are falling. Remember, safety first.
Don’t make unnecessarily heavy stacks if the load is going to be moved by hand. Save the heavy stacks for equipment like pallet loaders or forklifts.
Do leave enough space between stacks of pallets for unloading. The aisles need to be wide enough to accommodate pickers, and even whole pallets in case they need to be moved to uncover another item.
Don’t place stacks up against walls if possible. A stack on a wall is a perfect home for pests – rodents, insects, spiders, and even snakes prefer the kind of dark corners created by stacks up against walls.
Do pay attention to height limits. These limits are determined by the types of items being stacked, and by the way they’ll be accessed. If you have the right equipment, you can go pretty high. However, if something will be retrieved by hand, the limit is going to be much lower.
Overall – be flexible. These guidelines are important, but sometimes you’ll need to account for other considerations. Some heavy items are small, and some light items are quite large – stacking needs to take this into account. Consider the centre of gravity and the balance of all items. Think about possible environmental issues – does the item need to be stored in the dark, or in a cool, dry place? Make sure those are factored into the equation.
In general, the point here is to ensure that new employees are adequately trained. Sure, they may want to get right to the business of receiving a
European pallet delivery, or sending off a huge shipment to some far-flung corner of the globe… but first things first. They need to learn the right way to work in a warehouse.