Maintenance is one of the most important tasks to conduct in any work environment, especially one with as many moving parts as a warehouse. Regular upkeep helps your workplace stay safe and productive every day. To make sure you’re enforcing the right workplace practices, utilize these essential warehouse maintenance tips on a consistent basis.

Know Your Warehouse

First and foremost, those in charge of a warehouse need to know how it functions and which components require maintenance to keep it that way. For example, you might know that you have a forklift, but do you know that it requires an inspection before each and every shift?

When you’re unaware of these tasks, you can’t exactly enforce or schedule them. However, by thoroughly understanding your equipment and how to keep it intact, you’re making an incredible impact on workplace productivity. When in doubt, look at equipment owner’s manuals or ask your equipment vendor if you’re unsure of upkeep procedures.

Create a Concise Schedule

Once you know all the upkeep your warehouse requires, from inspecting forklifts to sweeping the floors, it’s key to set up a clear, concise schedule. Unfortunately, maintenance for warehouses is going to occur at different times in different ways, so schedule those procedures well in advance.

For instance, the aforementioned daily inspection is only one of multiple crucial forklift maintenance tasks. If you wait until the last minute to schedule maintenance, you may forget about it entirely, or the professional who needs to stop by and perform the maintenance might not be available.

When warehouse equipment doesn’t receive routine maintenance, that neglect is going to take a toll on its lifespan. Not only is repairing or replacing warehouse machinery costly but so is the downtime you’ll experience while those procedures happen.

Educate Your Employees

One of the single most essential warehouse maintenance tips is to always educate your employees. Some maintenance requires external help, though some (like the aforementioned forklift inspection) will be consistently carried out by your employees. To ensure employees are carrying out maintenance correctly, make those procedures a key part of their initial training.

Plus, even if you provide thorough maintenance training, employees might neglect or forget certain tasks. If you or someone else sees such an event occurring in the workplace, swiftly address the issue.

Allowing employees to improperly conduct maintenance or ignore the process entirely makes following the previous points, well, pointless. However, by enforcing the right work ethic, you can help the warehouse fire on all cylinders day-in and day-out.