Small Lift Truck Fleet Makes
Big Impact on Health and Safety
Small Lift Truck Fleet Makes Big Impact on Health and Safety
A global plastic solutions provider with over 250 locations worldwide based out of Indiana was looking to protect its fleet and more importantly its operators. With small fleet sizes of 4-6 trucks in each location you would think that keeping a watchful eye would be relatively easy. But the reality is that everyone is busy from the plant general manager right down to the shipping and receiving clerks. In fact, when it comes to regulating safety the biggest challenge that any company will have is creating bench marks to support the safety initiatives.
The specific benchmarks are what allow everyone in the company to fully understand how to get to 0 lost days. Simply wearing PPE is not enough. This company assumed ownership of a brand-new fleet of 6 electric counterbalance lift trucks and was determined to introduce a fail-safe safety plan to protect all involved in lift truck operations.
Finally Benchmarks that Everyone Can Relate To
Working with thousands of companies over the years we can tell you that 99.9% of the people who operate lift trucks for a living are good employees, just trying to do the best job, as they see it, they can. Without the clear communication of metric benchmarks people assume fast is productive and therefore the best way to approach their job. The problem with this is that is not always compliant with safety and therefore counterintuitive to productivity.
This plastics manufacturer having researched several onboard options and decided to move forward with the IVDT Defender IM3 option that provided access control, pre-shift safety check and impact monitoring. The goal was not to ‘catch’ people working outside the parameters of safety but to clearly give them clear understanding and tools to operate within. For example, after an programmed operator is logged in the system will require the operator to fill out an electronic safety check at the beginning of each shift. In this case both rolling 8 and continental 12-hour intervals. Before the system was implemented the observation was that operators were just checking the boxes as quick as they could to get the truck into operation. The problem is that if a mechanical or safety equipment issue exists and is not identified it could cause a dangerous incident.
The Defender IM3 not only records the pass or fails of the safety check but also records the time the operator took to perform the safety. This gave the company the ability to ensure that 5 minutes each shift were dedicated to vehicle inspections and enforce it with the reporting. The IM3 also provides a two-tier impact monitoring system. Both a high and low impact. The high is a threshold the operator is not to surpass in the interest of safety over productivity and the low is a warning that sounds a lessor alarm just to alert the operator conveniently that they are getting close but still in a productive driving range. The approach is giving both tools and benchmarks to forklift operators, so they understand exactly what the companies line is on both safety and productivity.
The best part about the IM3 system is that it is supported by a Base Station, BS400 which provides a LAN webpage and the ability to send emails on event notifications that are exceptions to management and health and safety. Utilizing RF DiGi mesh license freewireless technology communicates without requiring wi-fi which could be a security risk and doesn’t require any monthly cloud-based fees.
All the data belongs solely to the company.
