Background
One of the world’s top three tire manufacturers, with global distribution centres for its products,
continually seeks to find better ways to improve handling of its tire products. At a location in Europe,
workers manually unload tires from containers onto pallets and transfer them to warehouse storage.
Workers also manually load tires into trailers; floor loading them to maximize the cube.
Due to health and safety concerns, the company felt compelled to find a solution to assist workers
with the strenuous task of unloading and loading interlaced rows of tires. Manual unloading requires
workers to climb on tires to reach high and then tug the tires free from their laced position. High
cube trailers are the most challenging as tire walls can reach approximately 8 feet high or more.
Conversely, the manual loading is even more challenging to build the wall of interlaced tires. These
manual tire handling methods have a very high risk of injury due to the intensity of exertion and
physical strain on the worker.
The Solution
After researching our portable ergonomic conveyor systems products further, the company decided to purchase a Restuff-it™ bi-directional machine with tire handling options, primarily because of the potential health and safety benefits.
When unloading and loading with a Restuff-it, a worker stands on a height adjustable platform
which rises 26” from the floor. This optimizes the worker’s position to the tire wall. Moving the pivoting
conveyor side to side as well as up and down further optimizes handling to reach the different zones
of the tire wall. Using the Restuff-it eliminates over-reaching, stretching, twisting, and throwing of
product in contrast to the previous manual unloading and loading method. In addition, a bi-directional
machine provides flexibility when the operation requires both unloading and loading capabilities.
An increase in productivity (more throughput) was realized because of the effectiveness of
Restuff-it. It minimized back and muscle strain on workers. The effectiveness has also helped with
increasing employee morale.