It's been said that there are two kinds of warehouses: those that have had serious accidents and those that will.

Fixed equipment, lift trucks, trailers and box cutters present safety risks. Still, that reality is too often overlooked, according to Dixie Brock, the national warehouse safety manager for third-party logistics provider, APL Logistics, Inc. (510-272-8208).

'It's not hard to get a general manager's attention,' Brock says. 'But it's often hard to get buy in from supervisors who are focused and compensated on productivity.'

But a safe warehouse is also a productive warehouse. It is also a more profitable warehouse, according to Brock. A facility with a 1% profit margin needs an additional $100,000 in revenue to offset every $1,000 spent on workers' compensation claims.

Some areas of risk are obvious. Lift trucks account for 20% of the injuries in many facilities, especially around the shipping and receiving docks, according to Brock. Materials handling related accidents, such as strained backs and muscles, account for another 30%.

The remaining 50% of injuries fall into three categories.

Unsafe conditions: These include spills on the floor, sharp protruding edges and unprotected machinery, as well as pallets and other obstructions in the aisles.

Unsafe processes: Warehouse jobs, like loading and unloading trailers, are inherently risky. But managers can create safe processes for those jobs.

Some APL Logistics facilities, for instance, don't have dock locks on trailers. 'In those facilities, we give every lift truck operator an orange cone to put out front of a trailer he's loading or unloading and a lock for the trailer air hose,' Brock says. 'That way, a driver doesn't accidentally pull away with a trailer that's still being loaded.'

Unsafe behaviors: Speeding lift truck drivers, improper handling of box cutters, and horse play around the loading docks all lead to accidents.

Yet unsafe behavior is the least likely behavior to be policed. 'Supervisors are busy, and it's easy to let something slide because they're busy doing something else when it happens,' says Brock. 'But they have to recognize a risk when it happens and take action so it doesn't happen agai n.'

Brock has identified five steps to creating a safer warehouse at APL.

The process starts by identifying risk. Brock begins with an examination of the locations, tools,  people and processes involved in previous accidents. She looks for the contributing factors that can be addressed to prevent future accidents.

For any new accidents, an effective investigation is crucial. That means going beyond simply reporting that someone was cut and needed sixteen stitches. It is just as important to document where, when and how the accident occurred, including re-enactments whenever possible. 'If I know that someone was cut picking a certain part number from a certain rack location when they were cut, I can find out if it was just chance or if there is a sharp and unsafe protrusion at that rack,' says Brock.

Once it's known why an accident occurred, it's important to take corrective action to prevent it from happening again. That involves breaking a process down into the component steps to see if there's another way to perform the task and minimize risk.

Accountability is also key. 'A general manager has to hold supervisors accountable, and supervisors have to hold employees accountable for what happens on the floor,' says Brock. 'We have discharged supervisors who did not report accidents in their areas, or who didn't address an unsafe condition or behavior they knew about.'

It's also important to be consistent in how the rules are applied. 'You can't let things go one day and hold people accountable the next,' says Brock. 'You need the same approach day in and day out.'

The final step is education and training. 'You make sure that you don't just train employees to do a job, you train them in the safe way to do the job,' Brock says.

While identifying safety violations is important, so is celebrating safety successes. 'You have to measure the performance of the facility so you can fix anything that's wrong,' says Brock, 'and you have to celebrate the successes with some kind of recognition when they are doing things right.'

As the old saying goes, it's better to play it safe than to be sorry. That goes for logistics safety initiatives as well.