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6 Tips to Improve Forklift Performance

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | 6 Tips to Improve Forklift PerformanceForklifts are important pieces of equipment in the manufacturing industry, especially in heavy industries like mining and construction. Forklift operators must ensure they are moving materials around safely and efficiently, to maximize productivity and output. As a manager, there are several things you can do to ensure your machines are performing to their level best without risking any damage. Let’s look at some tips to help you improve forklift performance.

1. Ensure the forks on your forklift are adjusted correctly

If both sides of the fork exhibit a different angle, this will cause an unequal distribution of weight and unbalance. This could be dangerous to you and others around you, so always adjust it before operating the machine. The angle should be set at 90 degrees. If there is no mechanical means of adjusting the angle, you can use wedges that are inserted in between the forks.

2. Make sure your forklift truck is properly loaded

If you have to lift a heavy cargo with a smaller load, don’t just add weight on top of the fork. This could leave gaps in between and cause instability. It’s safer to add a second forklift to lift the extra load or just use a lower “fill rate” when loading your cargo. The maximum carrying capacity printed on the side of your machine should not be exceeded. If unsure, make sure to consult an expert for advice before operating. This will ensure safe operations and avoid any accidents that could disrupt your productivity.

3. Ensure your forklift is well maintained and serviced regularly

You can check for wear and tear using a visual inspection gauge before starting the engine, which you should do every time you start up. Parts like brakes and hydraulics must be checked periodically too. Wear will usually show up as cracks, rust, or deforming of materials (usually steel). If there are any parts that need replacements, get new parts as necessary. When purchasing these parts, make sure you get quality items for better longevity. One way you can ensure quality is by buying from a reputable dealer like Intella Parts.

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4. Check the oil regularly

Checking and topping it up will ensure your machine runs smoothly on the job site every day, avoiding any sudden mechanical failures that could be costly to productivity or even personal safety. Oil is an important lubricant part of the forklift. Inspect the oil levels to make sure they are at the proper levels before starting up.

5. Proper forklift training is crucial for operators

It’s always best to learn the right way to use a forklift from an expert, so you can avoid accidents and continue operating safely for years to come. In fact, it’s a legal requirement in many countries for forklift operators or people who will be using the machine regularly for work purposes. Training on how to use a forklift also ensures the machine is used correctly, maximizing efficiency, safety, and productivity.

6. Ensure there is no speeding in the workplace

As the manager, you should caution forklift operators against speeding. Speeding can lead to accidents. If possible, you could use an automatic speed control device like the Speed Limiter, which is available for most forklifts. This device limits the maximum speed that a truck can drive, so your employees won’t be speeding on site.

Hopefully, these tips will help you to optimize your forklift’s performance. When it comes to forklift performance, you can never be too safe. If there is a way for your forklifts and their operators to perform better or more safely, then take that opportunity. You’ve invested in the equipment; now invest in its upkeep with these tips.

5 Benefits of Workload Automation in the Modern Workplace

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Workload Automation|5 Benefits of Workload Automation in the Modern WorkplaceIn today’s increasingly competitive business world, you need to constantly be on the lookout for ways to make your company more efficient. One highly effective way to do this is through the implementation of workload automation.

For the uninitiated, workload automation is the process of using software to streamline business processes, transactions, and workflows, all without the need for any human intervention.

If you are still unsure about whether this type of automation is the right choice for your business, the below blog may help to convince you. Keep reading to discover five benefits of workload automation for your modern business.

1. Improved efficiency

Efficiency is crucial if you want your business to attract new customers and outperform your competitors and workload automation has the ability to improve your efficiency levels significantly.

Even with the best workers in the world, manual actions will always be more time-consuming than automated ones. Plus, by automating these vital tasks, your skilled employees will have more time to focus on higher-value duties.

2. Increased productivity

Humans make mistakes. You should always account for human error and never assume that your workforce will be 100% perfect every single time. As a result of these mistakes, it can cost your business a lot of time and money. However, when you use workload automation software, you can eliminate the risk of human error, ensure that no important jobs are forgotten, and ensure that all data is entered correctly and on time – all of which will help to increase your overall productivity levels.

From simplified file transfers to the effective automation of big data, workload automation can streamline and speed up many of your IT processes.

3. Better protection against data loss

If you experience a hard disk crash, the resulting data loss can have huge repercussions on your business. Fortunately, if this occurs and you are using workload automation software, disaster recovery will be automatically implemented and your data will be protected.

4. Good ROI

If you are concerned about investing in new software for your business, you should know that workload automation offers a great return on investment. As mentioned above, it can make your workplace more efficient and productive.

However, it can also reduce your other automation costs. For example, most businesses have different automation tools for different departments, but workload automation is able to manage multiple platforms from one single platform.

Furthermore, it enables you to run forecast reports that can be used to manage resource utilization.

5. Ability to evolve

As a modern business, your needs are constantly changing and evolving. This means that you need software that is able to adapt with you. The beauty of workload automation software is that it takes a more sophisticated approach to controls and procedures.

Offering a single control access point, you can manage multiple tasks simultaneously and eliminate the need for dependency on your IT department.

Plus, by investing in a scalable WLA system, you can rest safe in the knowledge that your business will not outgrow your new software.

5 Technical Considerations When Starting Your Business

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StrategyDriven Business Startup Article | Entrepreneurship | 5 Technical Considerations When Starting Your BusinessIf you’re starting your own business and you don’t know what technical aspects you need to consider then don’t worry, you have definitely come to the right place. There are so many different technical considerations you need to think about before starting your business, working out whether or not you need to hire help in advance. Whilst it may take a chunk out of your start-up budget, you can relax knowing you’re not going to run into any problems. With that in mind, here are 5 technical considerations to think about when starting your own business:

Do You Have A Website Up And Running?

One of the most important parts of owning a business is ensuring you have a website up and running. Although it doesn’t equal success for every business, most business owners have found that creating a website has increased their visibility ten-fold. Whilst you can set up a site on your own, often it’s better to hire both a designer and a developer who can help you put together the best possible solution. For tips and tricks when it comes to hiring a website team, you can visit this site here.

Do You Need To Consider Hosting And Servers?

Although this may sound a little too technical, you need to think about both hosting and servers, especially if you have a large business. If you have a business that has the scope to grow, you may want to consider hosting your site, your data and your systems on your own server. If that’s the case, you can visit Linux VPS for more details.

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Have You Thought About Email Addresses Across The Business?

If you’re going to be hiring a team of people when you start your business, everyone is going to need their own personal email address. Whilst this may seem unimportant to begin with, it’s important you have this set up from the start to avoid any breaches of data. Alternatively, if you want to have a variety of different inboxes depending on the enquiry, you will need to have separate email addresses for each inbox. For more information when it comes to setting up several email addresses at once, you can visit this site here.

Have You Considered Security And Protection?

When it comes to technology within your business it is important you’re doing everything you can to protect your data and your IT systems. Whether this means downloading antivirus and malware software or taking precautions when it comes to GDPR, you need to be sure your business is technologically safe.

Are You Going To Be Using Social Media?

Finally, are you going to be using social media within your business? Whilst this may not be considered a form of technology to some, using social media to grow your business requires a lot of knowledge when it comes to tech. Whether it’s setting up your accounts, building a following or using ads to reach new customers – you need to have a certain level of skill in order to use social media for business.

Are you starting a business soon? What technical considerations do you need to think about before you get started? Let me know in the comments section below.

Working Out Your New Business on a Shoestring Budget

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Finances Article |Starting a New Business| Working Out Your New Business on a Shoestring BudgetThe internet has streamlined everything in our life—this is a clichéd statement that gets repeated in what we read, hear and see. We often quote this statement ourselves. However, is it absolutely true? For instance, many people believe that starting out a new business is as difficult as it was, say, 20 years ago. They maintain that working out on a shoestring budget is still a tricky rope to tread no matter if you are online or offline.

We can’t deny that steering through the formative phase of a business with limited monetary resources is no mean feat irrespective of the day and age. However, it is also true that the internet helps in any such endeavor. Even if doesn’t ease it out completely, it surely reduces the difficulty level of starting out a business from scratch and on a shoestring budget.

In this article, we are going to discuss how one can work out their business dream with limited resources and how the internet can come in handy in this regard.

Making and Pitching Business Plan Online

If you are on to capital collection for your startup, then you definitely need to create a business plan to reach out to investors. Taking a conventional route with the creation and pitching a business plan is itself a costly affair. You might have to hire a specialist to make you a business plan. After that, you have to bring that plan to the tables of people that matter. It’s obvious that this approach needs both your time and money.

You can do both planning and pitching online without spending a buck. And if you don’t sure about the free business templates, you can get fully professional business plan services at a minimal cost. Similarly, you can pitch your idea through the internet. The business plans you will find on the internet are so self-explanatory that the investors will know if they need to call you to have a one-on-one meeting.

In short, you can save a considerable amount of resources on making and proposing your business plan if you are using the internet rightly.

Start out as an LLC

There are different business categories in the legal framework that are assigned to every new business. We would recommend you to choose the LLC (Limited Liability Company) categorization for your business. To begin with, being LLC is the most advantageous option for any new and small business from many legal and operational aspects.

Moreover, you don’t need to allocate a big chunk of money to complete the registration of your business as an LLC. You can do it yourself online without spending more than $100 dollars for registering anywhere in the US. Lastly, you don’t need any legal aid while filing the online LLC forms, which means you are saving yet another cost.

Even if you have the dream to make your business a C-corporation, we would suggest you start out as LLC. You can shift to your preferred classification anytime you want. Forming LLC will not just save you cost, but it also involves fewer risks.

Secure Intellectual Property

Today, when startups are mushrooming at a very quick rate, it has become really important for any new entrepreneur to secure its intellectual property at the earliest. Amidst all the informational proliferation all the time, you can’t keep your business plan and trademark under the cover for long. It’s also possible that someone else will come up with the same plan as you and have it formally patented while you are still mulling over it.

In short, the better business sense suggests that one should register their intellectual property at the onset. If you don’t have enough money at the start to hire costly experts to do this on your behalf, don’t just sleep on it for any other time. The US Patent and Trademark Office now offers its services online. From trademarks to patents and copyrights, you can register every piece of intellectual property online for a few hundred bucks.

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Arrangement of Office Space

No matter how virtualized our lifestyle gets, we still need to operate through physical spaces. Even if you are planning on to start out an online business, you will need to have some physical space to operate from. Getting a full-fledged office in commercial zones seems like an insurmountable task when you don’t have enough money to work with.

One way to steer out of this tricky spot is to go for virtual office space services where you and your team can remotely work without needing any physical space or desk. However, this idea can’t work for all business plans, particularly not for the ones where you have to meet clients in person and call meetings. In such cases, the need for physical office spaces becomes inevitable. The internet can also come in handy to find physical office spaces.

There are entrepreneur outreach programs and incubators that offer physical office spaces, conference rooms and other business amenities at the fraction of the price of the main real estate market. You can start your journey to find office space from here.

Make the Most of Cloud Computing and Pay-as-you-go Software Subscriptions

This is where the internet helps budding businesses like a guardian. With Google providing so much free online storage and Amazon providing web services at exceedingly marked down prices, you don’t need to invest heavily on you digital and software infrastructure initially.

Make the Most of Social Media

This is another domain where the internet provides some unmatched benefits. For instance, you can save the entire cost of your marketing if you are using social media the way it should be. With search engine optimized curation of content for platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, you can reach out to your target market without spending a single cent.
Obviously, not every business plan can execute in the same manner. It has its own peculiarities. Nevertheless, the points that we have discussed here will surely help in working on any business idea with strained budgets.

The Environmentalist’s Approach To Business

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Environmentalist|The Environmentalist's Approach To BusinessRunning a business and being an environmentalist are two things that might not seem to naturally go together, but they can actually work together pretty easily if you know how best to approach it. The truth is that there is a way to run a business which is good for the environment, but you do have to make sure that you are specifically doing that, otherwise it won’t just happen on its own. Let’s take a look at some of the things to bear in mind if you are keen to run your business in this way. You might find some of these things make a huge difference.

Be Honest With Shareholders

One of the things you need to do is to make sure that you are being honest with your shareholders about what you aim to do regarding the environment and your business’ approach to it. If you are not honest about this, it only means that you are going to attract the wrong kind of shareholder, so that is something that you’ll find doesn’t pay off anyway in the long run. Be honest with them upfront, however, and you should be able to get a lot more out of it.

Take Care With Construction

Essentially, anything new that you create you have to make sure that you are doing so as sustainably as possible, as otherwise you can’t really be sure that you are genuinely helping the planet as much as you would like to. You should therefore consider it a general rule of thumb to take care with your construction of products, buildings and whatever else, and to ensure that you are sourcing your resources sustainably and using them appropriately too. That is going to really make a huge difference, so it’s something you’ll want to think about.

Reduce Waste

That feeds in nicely to our next major point – that you should be aiming to reduce your waste as much as possible as you go about running your business. The less waste you produce in business, the better for the planet it is, not only because it requires energy to have it disposed of, but because it helps to reduce the amount of leachate in landfills and other such toxins that you would rather avoid if at all possible. Do all you can to reduce waste and you are going to be helping the environment a lot.

Take Responsibility & Hold Yourself Accountable

Above all, you need to make sure that you are actually taking responsibility for what you do, and that you are making a point of holding yourself accountable at all times. As long as you are doing that, it should mean that you are going to have a much better chance of doing right by the planet at all times. This is something that you can then do better and better as time goes on and as your business grows – just as it gets more important to do it, too, as your impact grows as well.