DC Velocity - July 2013

▪ There is no one at the corporate level devoting most or all of his or her time to overseeing safety

▪ Safety training for managers, supervisors, and employees is irregular or infrequent

▪ Turnover among managers and supervisors is high

▪ The network includes acquired companies with differing safety policies and practices

▪ There are large-scale changes in staffing, such as when a facility moves to a new location or many temp workers are hired at one time.

Even when none of those condi-
tions exists, the fact that different
people in far-flung locations are
involved can be a risk factor in itself.
“It will quickly get inconsistent if
you haven’t focused on making it
consistent,” observes Dixie L. Brock,
manager, Americas safety and
claims for APL Logistics (APLL),
which manages more than three
dozen warehouses and DCs in
North America.

IS EVERYONE GETTING THE MESSAGE? Ensuring consistent safety compliance requires not just standardized information but also standardized methods of communication. The safety experts interviewed for this article provide each of the facilities their companies manage—whether owned, leased, or belonging to a customer—with manuals that document safety policies, standards, and procedures. These books (whether in print or electronic form) are updated as necessary and typically include addenda that lay out loca-tion-specific procedures.

Regularly scheduled training on a specified topic at every facility is a must. Many companies, including NFI and Kenco, conduct mandatory monthly training sessions; most of the topics are dictated by OSHA requirements, supplemented with refreshers on other subjects the companies deem important. APLL’s Brock sends out a training module every month but usually does not set the topics in advance. Instead, she reviews safety data from all of the company’s sites and chooses subjects based on what she sees. For example, a rise in ergonomic incidents among temp workers prompted a training module on ergonomic best practices. She also chooses topics based on regulatory requirements or even seasonal criteria, such as hurricane and tornado preparedness in the spring and ways to avoid heat stress in early summer.