Safecutters

Some workers, faced with a stiffly-wrapped package and no package opener in sight, will opt for brute force. They pull, push, pry, poke and tear on the flaps of the box, all to no avail. They yank on the loose end of the packing tape until it tears—or doesn’t tear. The use of teeth is not unknown. Shoulders strain, fingers get cut, and the boxes are reduced to tatters—sometimes along with the materials inside. Other workers, bereft of the safety products, will assault a perfectly innocent parcel in a sometimes dangerous approach with all manner of blunt objects in a sometimes dangerous approach —a jackknife, butter knife, the handle of a spoon, sewing scissors, screw driver, keys, letter opener, fork, the sharp end of a pen, or whatever is handy, and the upshot, usually, is bent utensils, dull scissors, and sore shoulders, at best.   At worst, the result is cuts, lacerations and trips to the emergency room.

Without proper safety tools such as a safety knife, package-handlers—whether shipping and receiving or mail room workers or just ordinary folks—not only risk knife accidents (which can be deadly), but also Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI), a kind of musculoskeletal disorder that results from overtaxing certain muscle groups by tensing them for excessive time periods, due to overuse or poor posture. The use of the wrong tools leads directly to such muscle strain and overuse. Safety products are designed to minimize the use of arm and shoulder muscles. They thus increase efficiency and save time, as well as protecting workers from injury.

To avoid injury or damage to inventory, retailers should use safety products when opening shipping and receiving freight. Perhaps one of the most often overlooked precautions is in the use of a utility knife. Retailers are constantly receiving shipments and orders that require careful opening to prevent injury as well as damage to the product. Use the following guidelines to safely open a carton with a safety knife:

Always keep a safety knife with a sharp blade handy when working with freight and opening boxes.
Set the carton on a flat, steady surface.
Position the carton at an angle to your body so that the cutter will not be moving directly towards you.
Place one hand on the box and use the other hand to firmly hold the safety tools.
Make a smooth cut, and then turn the carton a quarter revolution. Make another smooth cut, and turn the carton again.
Cut as close to the top of the box as possible with the safety cutter.
Check the condition of the safety knife’s blade. Dull blades require more pressure and increase the risk of injuries.

To work well, safety products need to be mistake-proof. In other words, its safety features must be so deeply built-in that a new, untrained employee can’t accidentally override them.

Most of all, be sure you have good safety tools on hand. Use safety cutters with a sharp blade, because dull blades require more pressure, leading to greater potential for injuries. Maintain a full set of safety products box cutters and safety cutters for your employees and your home, and instruct everyone who handles them in proper box-cutting technique.