Cold Chain Storage: Challenges and Solutions for Worker Health & Safety

It’s critical for cold chain logistics to ensure temperature-sensitive items, such as food, chemicals, laboratory samples, and vaccines, remain at the right temperature. Every step of an item’s journey from transport to cold chain storage must comply with regulations, so goods will stay high quality and safe once they reach their final destination.

But it can be challenging to manage the strict regulations of the temperature-controlled environment and worker safety during material handling tasks. To balance these two important needs, companies must understand the challenges their workers face and how to find the right cold chain solution that can improve safety and productivity of their operations.

4 Chilling Challenges in Cold Chain Storage

Workers face many challenges as they try to sort and palletise heavy items, such as working in the cold for long periods of time and maintaining good ergonomics when lifting items.

Cold Working Conditions 

Cold chain storage workers handle goods that require low temperatures, which places them in environments that are colder than comfortable for a person. These chilling temperatures leave workers vulnerable to frostbite, hypothermia, or musculoskeletal injuries.

Another factor to consider is that working in cold temperatures for a long time can decrease a worker’s dexterity and thus, increases the possibility of an accident. Accidental drops might damage the product, which decreases profitability. The worker could also sustain an injury, which would end their ability to work while they recover. Depending on the severity of the injury, the worker’s health will suffer in the short-term or long-term, and efficiency can suffer when it’s difficult to fill their position during sick leave.

Ergonomic Risks

The material handling conditions at cold chain storage can physically strain workers and even lead to injuries. Protective clothing is important to help workers manage the cold, but the thick, bulky clothing limits movement. This adds strain to physical tasks like lifting items and requires a worker to exert more energy.

Also, many workers must repetitively lift items while they sort and palletise them. Workers usually need to bend over to lift items, which puts pressure on muscles and joints. Manual lifting of items poses ergonomic risks that can injure workers, cause them to require sick leave, and lead to under-staffed operations.

Labour & Time Intensive

Lifting heavy items can require multiple people. This makes some material handling tasks very labour intensive and less efficient than a process where one person can lift the item. Also, heavy items put strain on a worker and can be difficult to lift, so moving them from one point to another can be slow. When time equals money, it is beneficial for processes to be as quick as possible.

Problems with Heavy Machinery

Machinery is an important part of cold chain logistic operations to improve efficiency and profitability. However, it can be difficult to find machinery that operates well in frozen temperatures and maintain them to stay in good working condition. The constant cold can wear down parts of a machine and can reduce its performance.

Another aspect to consider is worker’s ability to use the machinery. Some machines require extensive training to help users understand how to use them properly and safely, which means that every new employee must dedicate a long time to training. Also, the layers of gear to protect against the freezing temperatures means workers have less mobility and they need a machine that they can still easily operate while wearing gloves.

Finding the Right Cold Chain Solutions

You don’t want to leave workers out in the cold. The right cold chain solution ensures workers are no longer adrift or stuck lifting items by hand. Let’s explore important criteria for evaluating what solution is right for your operations.

Durable in the Cold

When a machine plays a crucial role in the operations of cold chain logistics, it needs to work where employees are doing their job. Here are some important questions to consider:

• Does this machine operate well in a cold environment?
• Is this machine durable and will last for a long time?
• Will this machine be reliable so that workers can count on it during their shift?

TAWI offers stainless steel lifting solutions that are durable in cold conditions, such as vacuum lifters and lifting trolleys. They remove physical exertion from workers and eliminates concerns of worker’s reduced dexterity because workers won’t be handling the items themselves anymore. Instead, the lifting solution will be doing the work and reliably lifting the weight of the load, so your workers and products are safer and stay in good condition.

Good Ergonomics in cold chain storage

Lifting one box one time might not be a huge cause of concern, but lifting hundreds of boxes every week can cause physical strain and increase the risk of injury. When workers need to lift items, they are important ergonomic factors to consider to ensure their health and safety:

• How much weight is the worker lifting?
• How often is the worker lifting this item?
• What areas of the body are strained from current material handling processes?

Adding a semi-automated lifting solution into cold chain logistic operations greatly improves health and safety compared to manual lifting. Regardless of the weight of items and the frequency, workers will stay safe when using a TAWI vacuum lifter. The lifter handles the weight of the item instead of the worker’s body, which improves safety and reduces injuries & sick leave.

Less Labour & Time Required

While lifting heavy items can require two or more people, a lift assist can reduce any lifting task to one person. This improves productivity as the second person is now able to work on a different task. Another benefit with a lifting solution is a machine doesn’t experience fatigue. Workers with a lift assist work at a consistent speed throughout their entire shift, and this improvement in efficiency lead to more items being transported/moved and more profitability for the business.

Easy to Learn & Operate

When machines have a steep learning curve or difficult to operate, workers are less incentivised to use them. When you consider how the machine will integrate into your process, here are useful aspects to evaluate it:

• How quickly can workers be trained on the machine?
• How well can the machine be added to an existing workflow?
• How well can workers operate the machine while wearing protective gear?

TAWI provides lifting solutions that workers easily learn to operate and that are quickly integrated into existing workflows. This helps workers start using the solution right away and makes training new employees fast and easy. And even with the limited movement from a worker’s protective gear, people can use a vacuum lifter’s simple handle to quickly raise and lower items and move it where it needs to go.

Staying Competitive in Cold Chain Storage

As many companies look for ways to improve their cold chain logistics, staying current with latest advancements and utilizing technology is important to remain competitive. TAWI is a trusted partner that can work with you to evaluate your operations and find the best solution to fit your lifting needs.

In Norway, TAWI worked with Gardermoen Perishable Center (GPC) to implement a solution that could lift heavy boxes of fish quickly and keep workers safe.

Results from using TAWI’s lifters:

1. Reduction in injuries & increase in safety
2. Improved operational efficiency with less time lifting boxes
3. Better team morale

Omar Solis, Team Leader and Health, Safety, and Environment Manager at GPC, said:

Read more here.

If you’re interested in exploring lifting solutions for cold chain storage, reach out to a member of our team.