A recent episode of our Podcast series, Logistics Business Conversations, took a tangential route, with Editor Peter MacLeod discussing matters relating both warehouse safety and cycling with expert guest Jim Ryan of Sentry Protection Products.
How do you best cover what could be described as the rather dry topic of warehouse safety? By tying it into one of Ryan’s big extracurricular passions, namely cycling. “Cycling is one of the first things that you pick when you’re a kid. In Indianapolis they happen to have a big cycling community and a velodrome, one of the probably, about that time, just 3 or 4 across the United States. I was lucky, turning a hobby into something that I concentrated on, but eventually realized I was nowhere close to the levels that would have to take me to the top. ‘Keep your job’. And I kept my day job!”
Drawing parallels between cycling and warehouse safety we can look at protection of the self and of those around us. Let’s say that when you’re riding a bicycle it only really works if it’s moving. You stop; you fall over. What sort of parallels can you draw there?
“Exactly that,” replies Ryan (below). “I think it’s a perfect parallel because if you don’t go anywhere, you fail completely. We have always felt that way. 27 years ago we came up with the concept of an energy-absorbing column protector for buildings. I wasn’t the inventor. We bought the patent and created Sentry around that idea. We were always thinking ‘what’s next’, what’s a good addition to what we do. We try to move the bicycle forward, as you say. If we’re just relying on what we’ve done in the past, it’s eventually going to fall.”
Those of us who’ve ended up in a thorny bush or even on a hard pavement once you’re clipped in with your cleats, know that you have to show true commitment, single-mindedness in the task. I guess you need to have that to be an entrepreneur and a successful in product development?
Don’t Panic, Plan
“I think there’s always a little bit of restlessness there, always something new. I’ve done some long trips but it’s not just about getting there in the fastest possible time. You need to plan for a start, but then you develop and learn. I’m a little bit older now and racing is really not what I’m going to be doing. Five years ago my brother and I did a trip all the way across the USA and it’s interesting, challenging yourself. I think there are parallels with business. Every day we would plan and have three different outcomes: Our goal – going from here to the next destination, but also two other options – a ‘stretch’ if we do a good job and a ‘bailout’ if something goes awry. We were prepared for either so there’s no panic when something happens, you have a breakdown or when the weather doesn’t cooperate.
“In business if you don’t have a plan you’re not going to get anywhere. But you also have to be flexible in what you do. It’s not always up to what you do, it’s the environment around you. What happens, what good luck or bad will you run into? Success may surprise you if you’re not geared up for manufacturing at scale. We’re having to create contingency plans on how changes in world trade are going to affect us.”
We allude to the famous ‘known knowns’ and ‘known unknowns’. We hear that a lot in the supply chain, trying to predict hurdles and challenges. It’s all very well knowing you’re going to come up against a headwind at some point when you’re on a bike, but you need to know how to react. It’s about making sure everything is in the plan, the backup, the supplies.
“Headwinds are absolutely a part of cycling and business. Just as the winds across a very flat landscape like Kansas on our trip meant we we’re pushing against tremendous headwinds, in business you have to say ‘how are you going to share that burden’. Sometimes you have to team up with others and, by doing so, you get farther down the road. Alliances can be unlikely. You may teaming-up with a competitor just so that the group could push a hole through the air to get ahead of whoever may be behind.”
Can awareness and development of a particular product actually be helped by having competition? “Yes. Our forays into Europe with our radical idea of a plastic, energy absorbing column proved that. We felt this was a positive thing for safety in warehouses, anywhere where you’re running forklifts or any kind of vehicles. Trying to convince people of that was a hard road. I remember talking to people, especially in Germany where they’re used to solid steel products and hearing them saying ‘is this approved’? I said no, this is new. No one was willing to push it forward.
Need for Competition
“Other companies entered the market. We brought this idea to market, but it never was really accepted until customers saw 2, 3, 4 varieties. It pushed through that resistance and then it becomes accepted, pushing the whole industry forward. There are days when I say, ‘I wish I didn’t have so many competitors’. But then I realize, especially for our European sales, we wouldn’t have gotten anywhere until we had competitors. I’m always fascinated by watching the grand cycling tours when a breakaway happens. Different cyclists, from different teams trying to win, use cooperation. In the end you’re not there to help the other person win, you’re there for that time when you’re breaking away, trying to stay away from the rest of the peloton. There’s a guarantee one of you will win, or at least that none of you will be losers.”
There was a time when you were the only one with collapsible racking barriers. Now you look around LogiMAT and there are quite a few. “Everybody’s got a different idea, different twist on it. We occupy what I think is the highest quality end of it because we’ve never compromised. We’ve always got to come up with something better. In warehouses, the ideas we brought forward 25 to 27 years ago are now standard. What’s next? How are we going to continue to push?”
A generation ago, forklift trucks would have struck solid objects and it would have caused untold damage and the implications come with that. You’ve tested your products considerably. Talk us through some of the physical qualities. “If you try to take that kind of force, the mass of a fork with the speed, and you try to decelerate to zero you are going to have damage. But if you just stretch that out a little bit the results are much better. That’s a principle we put forward with our products. Your fork truck running into it decelerates a little bit slower, and that allows for energy to be absorbed. The person who’s driving it and the column or rack all survive simply because you’ve turned that instantaneous deceleration into a gradual deceleration. The physics of it are clear.”
How do we continue to apply that to things? “I look at some of the guardrails that are out there right now. Same principle – it’s slower deceleration. Instead of hitting something solid, where a steel guardrail is going to stop you, but it’s going to wreak some damage to the fork truck and the driver. We’ve also got training. You can’t go into warehouse thinking I’m safe because I’ve got all the bells and whistles around me. Let’s not take our attention away from safety practices. A safe warehouse not only looks safe, but feels it. When you envision a safe environment you have to talk about it and plan for it. Your practices have to encourage. You need to keep efficiency going, but you need to do so in a way that you operate in a safe manner.”
What would you say to those who argue that investment in safety is a cost they simply cannot afford? “Would you say I can’t afford people? You have to work as a team, be as a team. Investments in safety are just an investment in your workforce. In most cases when you have a safe environment, you’re going to get the throughput, you’ll get happier people. And when you have happier people they’re going to look out for you just like you looked out for them.”
