It might still feel like summer is here, but unfortunately, winter is just around the corner. While the warmer temperatures of summer have their own difficulties in a factory, the winter months are some of the hardest for a factory manager. Preparing your factory for winter takes time, effort and money. However, thorough preparation can make your factory a safer, more comfortable and better place to work over the winter months.
Have a plan
One of the easiest ways to prepare your factory for winter is to have a plan of how you are going to respond. Being responsive to new issues in your factory can leave you scrambling around for solutions. Instead, consider creating a thorough plan for how you are going to deal with the issues that winter brings. In order of likelihood, these might be:
• Cold Temperatures
• Adverse Weather
• Pests and Birds
• Travel Issues
Storing things safely
During the winter, it is essential to store things differently than you might during the rest of the year. Colder conditions can negatively affect things like machines and fuel in both the short and long term. If you normally store either tools and machines or fuel outside, then it is a good idea to investigate whether you could store them inside your factory over the winter.
Coping with snow and ice
Factories are not static places. Even if the machines you use are fixed in place, people and forklifts need to move around between them. In the winter, even if your factory seems sealed up and well insulated, sludge and ice find a way of being brought in from outside. If workers, either on foot on using a forklift, need to go outside, they can easily slip and hurt themselves or damage your goods in slippy weather. Externally, gravel and grit can help provide a safer path surface. Internally, rubber matting pathways can make any surface safer for your staff to move around on.
Keeping your factory warm
The most important thing to consider in winter is the warmth and comfort of your workforce. Factories often need to have open doors to enable people and vehicles to easily move in and out. In winter, this can easily result in the inside space being rapidly cooled to a temperature closer to that of outside. Plastic strip curtains can help protect the interiors of factories from undue heat loss, without impeding any workers or vehicles from being able to get in or out. They can also help with common winter factory issues, such as birds and other animals attempting to enter your space.
We offer a wide range of plastic strip curtains to deal with whatever winter can throw at them. Our curtains can be hung in a variety of ways to fit every space and hanging requirement. The PVC strips themselves can be hung at different heights and frequencies to match your factory’s needs.
Check out our full range of PVC strip curtains to see what might be most appropriate for your needs.