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Benefits of Lean Manufacturing and Related Blogs

Lean manufacturing is the process of cutting back on certain materials or speeding up certain processes to lower the overall cost of manufacturing. There can be key benefits to this approach to manufacturing, but it's important to move forward with a balanced view of lowering costs without compromising quality. This blog looks at that concept, but it also delves into other information related to the manufacturing and industrial fields. Ultimately, this blog is designed to help manufacturing professionals as well as B2B clients who purchase products or outsource processes to this field. If you have questions, I hope that you find the answers you need here.

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Benefits of Lean Manufacturing and Related Blogs

Two safety tips for those who own stainless steel manufacturing facilities

by Mark Peters

If you own and operate a stainless manufacturing facility, it is absolutely essential to do what you can to keep your employees safe whilst they carry out their work. Here are two tips that should help you to do this.

Make sure employees take appropriate precautions when transporting steel around the facility

Those who work in a stainless steel manufacturing facility often need to transport steel components from one area of the building to another. Due to the weight and bulkiness of stainless steel products, they usually need to use forklifts to carry out this job.

It is extremely important to make sure that any of your employees who are tasked with performing this type of work understand which precautions they need to take to keep both themselves and their co-workers safe during the transportation process.

For example, staff members should be instructed to secure the load onto the forks of the forklift, using either straps or ropes, before they start to drive the equipment.

The reason for this is as follows: if the stainless steel items are not properly secured to the forks, there is a chance that they could topple onto the ground at some point during the transportation process (if, for example, the operator needs to brake quite abruptly or needs to make a sharp turn).

If this should happen, the stainless steel components could hit another employee who happens to be working nearby. As stainless steel can be quite heavy, this incident could leave the employee with fractures and other serious injuries.

In addition to telling your employees to strap down any loads they need to transport, you should also warn them of the dangers of trying to transport large amounts of stainless steel in one trip (some employees may be tempted to do this in order to spare themselves the hassle of making multiple trips back and forth).

The reason for this is that piling an excessively large collection of very heavy stainless steel items onto the forklift's forks could affect the equipment's balance.

This could result in the equipment toppling forwards whilst the operator is driving down a slope, or falling sideways whilst they are turning a corner. In either situation, the operator would almost certainly be severely injured and the stainless steel products they were transporting would probably be damaged beyond repair.

Set up solid barriers around dangerous machinery

A lot of powerful machinery is needed to manufacture stainless steel. This machinery could potentially inflict serious injuries on your employees if they get too close to it.

For example, if an employee's sleeve or trouser leg gets snagged in a sheet metal cutting machine, they could sustain a serious arm or leg wound.

Likewise, if an employee gets too close to a C02 laser machine (a piece of machinery which is frequently used to engrave or mark stainless steel products), they could inhale or ingest some of the toxic fumes or dust that is emitted from the steel whilst it is being marked.

The simplest way to minimise the risk of these types of injuries occurring in your facility is to set up solid barriers around any dangerous machines. These barriers will eliminate the possibility of employees accidentally wandering too close to the machinery when walking past it or working near it.

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