5 Smart Tips To Avoid Stock Damage

Stock damage or inventory damage is one of the biggest challenges faced by several managers and business owners in today’s highly competitive market. If you’re running an enterprise, along with stock, you have to handle a lot many things. Read our article on 7 mistakes that entrepreneurs should avoid. for some tips on running your business without making poor decisions.

Anyway, such stock damages not only affect the financial health of a company with substantial revenue losses but sometimes are also responsible for employee injuries. Right from workplace culture, facility design, material handling equipment, industrial weighing machines for keeping a check on weight limits to safety equipment, several factors impact the safety of your stock.

Much of the stock losses can be prevented with the help of a few simple measures.

These 5 effective tips listed below can help you avoid not only stock damage but also boost the productivity of your warehouse.

Create and Encourage a Safe Workplace Culture

The importance of creating and encouraging your employees to maintain a safe workplace culture continually cannot be stressed enough.

This includes conducting regular staff meetings and training workshops. Well-trained employees are more likely to act proactively towards ensuring the safety of products and goods. It reduces the risk of product damage as well as personal injury.

For example, merely providing a training course for your forklifts operators will not only keep them safe during operations but will also reduce the amount of products you have to throw away as collateral damage from workplace incidents.

The practices you put in place for maintaining a culture of workplace safety also enables you to know the limits of your employees. This helps in preventing inventory damage as products get damaged, and people get hurt the most when employees involved are pushed past their reasonable limits.

Hence, when you see repetitive incidences of employees damaging products accidentally or injuring themselves, it is time to take a step back and reassess your workplace safety practices.

Identify the Responsible Factors

The factors responsible for warehouse inventory damage is the first step towards avoiding such losses.

Look for places where your employees are overextending themselves or products are exposed to risk. Are there any places where conveyors would make things safer, can installing a pallet inverter make the operations safer, are there any places where a hoist would be ideal for moving heavy items internally? Even small measures can go a long way.

For instance, providing pallet jacks or investing inappropriate material handling equipment can save you a lot of money and trouble. Pallet jacks can considerably improve the safety and curtail risks of product damage. Investing in appropriate material handling equipment might feel expensive, given the day-one costs, maintenance charges, and future updates.

However, you will appreciate the ROI on such equipment in the near future with reduced workplace injuries and lesser instances of product damage.

Redesign or Rearrange Your Facility

If stock damage is common in your warehouse, it may be time to consider redesigning or rearranging of your facility. Right from appropriate lighting to tidying up, there are a lot of opportunities to make your facility safer to reduce inventory damage. Here are certain common measures which can be taken to reduce product damage in terms of redesigning or rearranging your facility:

The aisles and the walkways are the most frequented areas by your employees, and they are also the most accident-prone zones. Hence, make sure that every aisle and every walkway is clean and clutter-free.

Weather can also be a significant cause for inventory damage, depending on the location of your warehouse. A lot of stock ends up in waste due to damage from harsh climatic and weather elements. Excessive heat can melt plastic, humidity can make packages soggy and unstable, and moisture can seep into the products leading to significant stock losses. If your warehouse if exposed to harsh weather conditions, consider redesigning your facility to ensure optimal stock protection from extreme weather elements.

Stock your items according to their weight and shape. Keep the more substantial items near the front of the facility on lower shelves. Place the lighter items in the back of the warehouse on the higher shelves. Rearrange the items as per your operational requirements.

Ensure that the lighting is appropriate throughout the warehouse. Safely placing a pallet in a tight space with a forklift is difficult, as is. The risk of accident and product damage increases if this is done under insufficient lighting.

Lastly, keep the workshop floor clean and tidy. Do not leave shrink-wrap on the floor or purchase brittle wooden pallets only to find that your warehouse floor is cluttered with pieces of wood. Ensure that all tools and equipment storing areas are clearly marked. Hang clear and informative signs and visual aids to help the employees operate more efficiently. This is important to avoid unnecessary forklift maneuvering and associated accidents.

Keep a Check on the Weight Limits

Collapsed shelves and tipping forklifts are among the most common causes of warehouse inventory damage. Hence it is important to know the weight limits of your shelving and packing areas to reduce product damage and injuries. Make use of the right weighing equipment such as warehouse scales, industrial scales, or floor weighing scale to keep a check on the weight limits and avoid related accidents as well as stock losses. Strictly follow the recommended limits to ensure safety with the help of correct weighing equipment.

Invest in Appropriate Safety Equipment

Safety equipment is extremely critical for every type and size of the warehouse. A lot of injuries and product damage incidents can be avoided with appropriate safety equipment.

For instance, a shelf safety netting helps stop heavy cartons from falling off palletized loads, breaking open and prevent injuries to employees working in that space. Visibility mirrors though installed for protecting workers, also help prevent incidents of stock damage.

Also, certain steps such as using the right tools, working smarter rather than faster, streamlining and continually improving operational processes, etc. can greatly reduce incidents of product damage. These tips will help you not only avoid stock losses but also maximize productivity through optimal usage of valuable resources.

Author Bio:

Kevin Hill heads the marketing efforts for scales offered by Quality Scales Unlimited in Byron, CA. Besides his day job, he loves to write about the different types of scales and their importance in various industries. He also writes about how to care for and get optimised performance from different scales in different situations. He enjoys spending time with family and going on camping trips.