Organisations and businesses across several industries often have facilities that store large amounts of material, products, or equipment; and are today turning to digital racking inspection as part of an overall warehouse safety initiative.
What this means is using technology in the form of a mobile device, alongside a paperless inspection solution with all the necessary management and safety inspection checklists that are required. Not only does the management team know that all inspectors are using the same checklist and smartest tool available to capture data, but the speed and ease of inspection is increased for the end user itself. Replacing the pen and paper method, digital racking inspection and warehouse safety solutions are fast becoming the go-to method of ensuring that all staff and facilities are working safely according to regulations and rules.
For many facilities such as warehouses or storage locations, there are often vast containers, racking or structures that are designed to home large amounts of material, products, or machinery. Whilst these are built to stand the test of their usage, routine inspection is paramount; not only for the safety of the worker operating within the vicinity of the assemblies, but also to ensure that whatever is being stored is being stored in the correct manner. If there is moisture or incorrect ventilation reaching a storage of some manufacturing produce, it may affect the final quality of the product. Equally, if machinery is allowed to be left standing in a wet area or near a hazardous zone, it could be disastrous for the performance and lifespan of the equipment. There are also the obvious safety reasons for carrying out inspection around warehouses and similar facilities; whilst scaffolding and storage is often efficient, it can be extremely dangerous if set up incorrectly. When forklifts and staff are moving about an area, incidents can occur which demand that sufficient inspection has been carried out before and after.
For warehouse safety and to carry out digital racking inspection, the most commonly chosen utensil is the mobile device and paperless inspection checklist. With this combination, inspectors can utilise all the features of a modern smartphone and tablet whilst carrying out any type of site audit, racking safety check or facility maintenance procedure. The device camera can be used to take pictures or scan barcodes/RFID, whilst the checklist itself can be set up to generate GPS timestamps at the time of inspection. For each piece of information that you can attach to the checklist, the checklist can also provide guidance for. Outside of the regular instructions for a particular check, manuals, ‘how-to s’ or regulations can be attached to each inspection checklist sub-section, which means that the field officer will always have the right guidance at the time. This also means that for management looking to comply with a particular racking standard provided by a national or international standard association, the checklist can be designed to meet the criteria. If the checklist and inspection is passed, it can automatically be used as a demonstration in compliance, and a clear data point in the audit trail.
