Housekeeping, Floors and Lighting

Housekeeping has an image problem. It sounds like tidiness, so it gets treated as a lower priority than the work.

It is the direct control for one of the largest categories of injury in the sector, and it is almost entirely within the control of the people on the floor.

Why it is safety work

Slips, trips and falls account for a large share of lost-time injuries in warehousing. Not falls from height — falls on the level, caused by something on the floor.

Every one of them traces back to something that was there and should not have been: a spill, a strap, a pallet, a cable, a puddle under a leaking roof, a broken piece of a load nobody swept up.

And the consequences are not trivial. A fall onto a concrete floor breaks wrists and hips. A fall in a traffic aisle puts somebody on the ground in front of a truck.

Spills

Deal with it now. This is the whole lesson in three words.

A spill left for later is a hazard with a queue of people walking towards it, none of whom know it is there. You know. That knowledge does not travel.

The sequence:

1. Make it safe first — a cone, a sign, or a person standing there if there is nothing else
2. Clean it, or get it cleaned with the right materials. Water, oil, chemicals and food waste each need a different approach, and your site has a method
3. Report it. Not for paperwork — because oil on a floor came from somewhere. Usually a machine that is leaking and will leak again tomorrow
4. Leave the sign until the floor is dry. A cleaned wet floor is still a wet floor

What not to do: put a pallet or a piece of cardboard over it. It hides the hazard rather than removing it, and cardboard on a wet floor is more slippery than the spill.

Obstructions

Anything in a walkway or a traffic aisle that is not supposed to be there.

The double hazard: somebody walking may trip over it, and an operator whose view is blocked by a load may not see it until they are on it. At that point they either strike it or swerve — and a swerve in a narrow aisle goes towards racking or towards a person.

The usual offenders:

• Pallets, empty or part-loaded, put down "for a minute"
• Stretch wrap and strapping, which tangles feet and wraps around wheels
• Boxes and stock staged in an aisle because the location was full
• Cages, trolleys and cleaning equipment left where they were last used
• Cables and air lines run across a walkway
• Waste that missed the bin

The rule that covers all of it: put it where it lives, immediately, or do not put it down. "For a minute" is how every obstruction in every warehouse started.

Cables specifically: route them out of walkways entirely. Where crossing is unavoidable, use a proper cable protector designed to be walked and driven over. Tape lifts, and the edge of a walkway is still the walkway.

Floors

Report these rather than working around them:

• Damaged or uneven concrete, potholes, broken joints. A pallet truck wheel catching in one jolts the load and the person
• Standing water, including from a leaking roof, which reappears every time it rains
• Worn-off line markings. The markings are a control, and a faded one is not doing its job
• Ice at dock doors and cold store entrances, which is a seasonal hazard everybody forgets in October
• Dust and debris from damaged product, which makes a smooth floor slippery

Lighting

Treated as comfort and it is a hazard multiplier.

Almost every warning in a warehouse is visual. A dark aisle hides, simultaneously: the spill on the floor, the damaged rack upright, the pallet overhanging the edge, the load about to be reversed into, and the truck coming the other way.

Report a failed light immediately. It is a five-minute job for somebody and it removes a genuine hazard.

And watch for the transitions. Coming in from bright daylight through a dock door, or out of a lit aisle into an unlit corner, means your eyes take seconds to adjust. Those seconds are when people walk into things — and when operators do not see people.

Storage discipline

Housekeeping extends to how things are put away, which module four covers properly. The parts that belong here:

• Nothing stored in a walkway or a traffic aisle. Ever, not briefly
• Nothing blocking a fire exit, an extinguisher, a first aid point or an electrical panel. These are marked and kept clear, and a pallet in front of an extinguisher is a serious matter rather than an untidy one
• Nothing overhanging a rack edge into an aisle
• Heavier items low, which is both a stability point and a handling one
• Empty pallets stacked properly and not too high, in their designated place. A leaning stack of pallets falls, and they are heavier than they look
• Waste in the bin, and the bin emptied before it overflows

Why it decays

Housekeeping is not a state you achieve. It is a thing that degrades continuously under normal operation.

Every pick leaves something. Every delivery brings packaging. Every busy hour produces three items put down "for a minute". A floor that was clear at seven is not clear at eleven unless somebody has been maintaining it.

Which gives the only approach that works: small and constant, by everybody. Pick the strap up as you walk past. Put the empty pallet where it goes now. Wipe the spill when you see it.

Not a scheduled clean at the end of a shift, because the injuries happen during the shift.

What this asks of you

• Deal with spills immediately
• Put things where they live, the first time
• Report what you cannot fix — floors, lights, leaks, missing markings
• Keep exits, extinguishers, first aid points and panels clear
• Pick up the small thing you are walking past

It is the least glamorous lesson in this course, and it prevents more injuries than anything else you can do personally.