{"id":5485,"date":"2013-10-30T09:01:20","date_gmt":"2013-10-30T14:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/?p=5485"},"modified":"2023-11-14T21:18:02","modified_gmt":"2023-11-15T03:18:02","slug":"disaster-recovery-planning-materials-handling-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/material-handling\/disaster-recovery-planning-materials-handling-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"Disaster Recovery Planning for the Materials Handling Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Safety-Products2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-5486\" alt=\"Safety Products\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Safety-Products2.jpg\" width=\"428\" height=\"351\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Safety-Products2.jpg 428w, https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Safety-Products2-300x246.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 428px) 100vw, 428px\" \/><\/a>Disasters can be natural or man-made.\u00a0 They can strike without notice, like\u00a0a fire or hurricane,\u00a0or can be seen coming from a long way off, such as a work stoppage.\u00a0 But all disasters have one thing in common: They can cause a suspension in your normal business operations.<\/p>\n<p>Effective disaster planning can shorten the amount of time your business is non-operational or operating on a limited basis. By having a disaster plan in place &#8212; and making sure your management team is familiar with it &#8212; it is possible to reduce the financial and operational impact should a disaster strike your business.<\/p>\n<p>The supply chain can be interrupted by any number of events including fires, labor strikes, weather events and other natural disasters. Even secondary disasters can affect your business, such as a labor strike that affects your customers or a natural disaster in another part of the country where you have a large customer base or where\u00a0a transportation center where your products normally travel through is located.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Restoring\u00a0Normal Operations\u00a0Quickly<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Regardless of whether it is a primary or secondary disaster, however, any interruption in your business&#8217; ability to delivery its product or service to your customers can cost you money in lost sales and production time. Preparing a disaster\u00a0 plan in anticipation of a disaster\u00a0can make the difference between whether it is a short-term or long-term interruption.<\/p>\n<p>When developing a disaster plan,\u00a0you should consider these elements:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The scope and purpose of the plan<\/li>\n<li>Types of potential disasters and how much advance warning can be anticipated<\/li>\n<li>Potential impact on your business, from very limited to catastrophic<\/li>\n<li>How long it likely will take for your business to recover<\/li>\n<li>Post-disaster organizational structure and decision-making responsibilities<\/li>\n<li>Plan approval, distribution and updates<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Anticipation Is the Key<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The first step of any disaster plan is anticipation: What warning systems are in place and who is monitoring them? In the event of a work stoppage, for example, a key manager could be appointed to keep tabs on pending contract expirations or to send warnings if it appears that negotiations may be breaking down. Then a backup plan could be enacted in response, such as finding alternative sources or supplies or labor.<\/p>\n<p>Businesses are required by law to have working fire alarm systems, but what about weather-related disasters? If your business is located in an area that experiences frequent tornadoes or hurricanes, for example, you might want to appoint a key manager to monitor severe weather warnings and implement a notification system whenever there is potential for a disastrous event.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pre-Action &gt; Reaction<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The second step of a disaster plan is planned response. Should you keep all of your inventory in a single location or does it make more sense to distribute it to numerous warehouses so that you still have limited operational viability should a disaster strike?<\/p>\n<p>How much insurance does your business carry and, more importantly, how fast will your insurance carrier respond so that you can minimize the downtime in the wake of a disaster?<\/p>\n<p>Another important part of disaster planning is employee safety. Does your business have an evacuation plan in the event of a fire, explosion, earthquake or other catastrophic event? Have your workers been drilled on what to do?<\/p>\n<p>Is your facility equipped with adequate safety equipment &#8212; such as fire extinguishers, emergency lights, safety cabinets and other materials handling safety equipment &#8212; that could make the difference between life and death?<\/p>\n<p>When you are preparing your disaster plan, Bahrns carries a full line of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/Safety-Products-796.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">safety products <\/a>that you can use to make your plan more effective, including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/Emergency-Lights-and-Fire-Extinguishers-805.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">emergency lights and fire extinguishers<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Disasters can be natural or man-made.\u00a0 They can strike without notice, like\u00a0a fire or hurricane,\u00a0or can be seen coming from a long way off, such as a work stoppage.\u00a0 But all disasters have one thing in common: They can cause a suspension in your normal business operations. Effective disaster planning can shorten the amount of &#8230; <a title=\"Disaster Recovery Planning for the Materials Handling Industry\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/material-handling\/disaster-recovery-planning-materials-handling-industry\/\" aria-label=\"More on Disaster Recovery Planning for the Materials Handling Industry\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,110],"tags":[976,348,1086],"class_list":["post-5485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-material-handling","category-safety-products","tag-featured","tag-material-handling-solutions","tag-safety-products"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5485"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12762,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5485\/revisions\/12762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahrns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}