Revisit The EPJ - vs - Shrink Wrap

Hello everyone, Marty T Hawkins here with Warehouse and Operations as a Career.  I want to sincerely thank you for checking in with us each week and I hope we mention something that will affect your career in some kind of positive way here today!  

I want to share something real quick.  I went to the grocery store today, a national chain, it’s close, convenient and frankly just easy for me to get in and out.  I’m not a big shopper.  I know what I want, I get it and get gone. Today I was the only person in line at lane 5.  The cashier was a gentleman that I’d learn in a bit had just turned 20 years old.  Now I often will hand out or leave behind a WAOC card or maybe even one of my distribution training center business cards if I’m somewhere local, and today, after paying I handed him a WAOC card and told him if he was ever interested in securing a job in the warehousing or transportation fields to send me an email, that I could probably help him out.   

No one else was in line so he took a minute to ask a few questions, and the conversation went something like this: 

Could I make more money in a warehouse? 

I told him probably and gave him the starting wage for a few entry level G/L positions I am presently working on with Belmar Integrated Logistics in Dallas.  

He stated that was a couple of dollars more an hour than he was earning now. I could tell that he was intrigued and wanted more information. 

I told him that all those positions would be full time and at least 40 hours a week with a couple of them providing maybe 50 to 55 hours a week.  Now I was thinking that would be the icing on the cake right?  A full-time position with some over time guaranteed! 

Well, he immediately, and I mean without hesitation let me know that he couldn’t work more than 25 to 30 hours a week.  That he only worked days and preferred something after 10 am.  Maybe 5 to 6 hours a day. 

I ask why those kinds of hours, was he going to school or maybe taking care of a family member or something.  He stated no, he didn’t need to make more than that and he needed his time off or what he called my chill time! 

Being me, I asked what was his plans for retirement?  Didn’t he want things?  He said he needed to be a kid first.  I’m only 20 years old.   

I thanked him and went on to my car! Having a WAOC card still in my hand I noticed a young man gathering up empty grocery carts in the parking lot, so I handed him the card and told him if he was ever interested in a warehouse position to give me a shout.  He said thanks but no thanks man, my brother works in a warehouse and that is some hard work, I don’t have to work that hard here.   

I took my card back and went to the car. I’m still shaking my head a little, but you know what, that may work for them.  They may have a better plan figured out.  Whither they do or don’t I honestly do wish them the best of luck and an amazing life.   

So lets talk some op’s.  To all the electric pallet jack operators out there, especially the rider jack operators.  Did you check your drive wheel and your load wheels today?  I mean really give them a good look over!  Both are on your pre-shift equipment report right? 

I was cruising YouTube today for a clip of stretch wrap being caught up in our wheels and ran across a short video that was caught by a security camera of a drive wheel literally falling apart while an operator was in forward motion.  Needless to say, the machine came to an immediate stop, and he was thrown about 6 feet forward.  Luckly he wasn’t hurt.  It showed him and a fellow worker picking up chunks of the wheel from under the jack.   

It made me think, If I am going to be honest here I have to admit that I do not always back way up and check that my drive wheel doesn’t have cracks running across or around it everyday.  I know, I should but, well, it is not something that happens all the time.   

I began to wonder how often it does happen, so I reached out to two different pallet jack mechanics I know for some advice.  They said that a catastrophic wheel failure like that hardly ever happens.  They both felt like a regular preventive maintenance or PM check may have caught it and had the gentleman backed up, bent over and checked the wheel that he would have seen the cracks.  They both felt like the incident was preventable.  

I reached out to the video channel, but I haven’t heard back from them yet.  I wanted to ask him if he ever checked the drive wheel before and if he would be checking it more going forward!  Do you check your drive wheels, I mean other than checking for chunks missing by rolling it forward and backward.  Honestly, before today, that’s about all I did.  but after seeing that film today, I’m going to be checking that wheel out a lot more often! Send us an email to [e-mail] and share your thoughts with the group, what are you going to do, will you be adding that point to your daily pre-trip? 

Anyway, so the reason I was looking for a video about shrink wrap getting wrapped around our load wheels was that I had a student going over to a place, a facility, that I knew always had, let’s say, opportunities with excess wrap being everywhere on the floor.  The culture there is if it’s in the way run over it!  I was explaining the additional expense wrap spun up in our wheels and mounts cost and the dangers it presents to us as operators if we don’t take proper care of our equipment and I wanted to show him some footage of such.  I found some really good ones, a few where the mechanics were showing us how much damage is caused to the bearings and even our hydraulic systems and lifting mechanisms. I think he was quite stunned.  

Now our load wheels are easy to check out, I do check them out every day before climbing onto my jack! Do you?   

So, I know the maintenance guys at this facility, they’ve been sharing with me for months how many load wheels are replaced, and I got to thinking.  Ok, we all know it’s a culture problem.  No one brings it up, so the shift just continues to run over the shrink wrap.  So, what if a new boot, a new hire eased into it.  Brought it up to the supervisor ever so often.  Maybe with a little coaching, he could get noticed in a good way.  Who know he could bring about some change.  Maybe even get recognized as helping to reduce expenses and improving productivity.  Imagine how much productivity is being lost with machines not running at full speed or having to be in the shop.   

I’ll let everyone know how our plan goes.  Either way a gentleman has found a great job and he’s trained and ready to take on the responsibilities of an electric pallet jack operator. 

Well, I think that’s enough for this week.  Let us know how you handle those drive and load wheels at your facility.  I’d appreciate it if you would tell a friend about our little podcast, the more the merrier!  And please check out the website at warehouseandoperationsasacareer.com and remember by using that little @whseandops that you can find us on both Facebook and twitter!  I forget what our Instagram handle is but you can find it.  Until next week, be safe, utilize your pre-trips, take that extra 60 seconds, it could mean that you’ll make it back home after your shift.