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Fork lift abuse

Number of messages: 13

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brian_k
Virginia, United States

I have a question. I work in a cold storage warehouse that it only 6 years old. We run Crown RD 5020 and PC 3000 lifts here. I think the Crowns are very good and rugged machines but ours are all junk now. We have 28 reach lifts and not one of them looks like they are only 6 years old. Most look and run like machines that are much older. On the average they have about 13000 hours on them. My question is does anybody else have problems with forklift abuse. For example I have to rebuild or replace 8 - 10 reach cylinders per month. I can't keep enough parts or cylinders on the shelf. I always have at least 1 or 2 lifts waiting for parts. The damage to the drive, caster and loadwheels are outragous. I'm always pulling plastic wrap and wood out of them. I go through about 20 loadwheels in a month. It just seems that for the number of lifts I have I'm going through alot of parts. Am I only one out there that has problems like this? Also I forgot to mention that the outriggers are being ripped apart, I'm not talking about just the end caps but also the portion that the load wheel axles go through, I have had to weld 5 back together. I'm also rebuilding 2 main drive units a month from where the covers are stabbed by the forks of antoher lift or they are beinga damaged by hitting other outriggers.

Modified 11 Jun 2005 12:59 AM
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william_f
North Lincolnshire, United Kingdom

Well, I can answer your question. You are not alone with forklift abuse. We run and maintain a fleet of around 45 front loaders and side loaders. They are mainly handling timber from quay side and in storage yards. Over the years we have tried many different makes of forklift, thinking that maybe a hydrostatic drive might be better than torque convertor. Or side loader might be better than front loader. It doesn't seem to make any different to our application, they just get broken. Torque convertors ripped of flywheels, Broken halfshafts, broken diffs, bent or broken rear axles, smashed off oil filters on engines. Burnt out clutches in transmissions. Leaking tilt rams, mast and carriage bearings broken like egg shells etc etc. I could go on all day ! I see that you also have the problem with plastic stapping. We have plastic and steel strapping. It cuts the tires, hub seals, then takes the brake pipes off. At one stage, we where replacing 7 tires a day. Tried differnt things to cure this problem like, moving pipes, kevlar liners, etc.

Posted 16 Jun 2005 07:55 PM

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mick
Tennessee, United States

Where,s your warehouse manager's this a problem they create & they have to fix. You can not do at your end. Start tracking your Damage cost & persent it to the very top man but be ready for back lash. Good Luck .

Posted 16 Jun 2005 11:47 PM

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jennive_r
Mississippi, United States

You can buy an impact montoring system.

Shockwatch makes a good product, but there are many on the market.

Posted 17 Jun 2005 01:47 AM

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brian_k
Virginia, United States

I have and continue to track the damage done not only to the lift but also to the building and other equipment. It does not seem to matter only thing that matters or gets their attention is when a lift is down for a week or more. We tried to get the shockswitch system and it was approved till it got to the corp head. He said no...need better mamnagment...lol. Its nice to know we not alone. Thanks

Posted 17 Jun 2005 02:00 AM

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greenbastard
Saskatchewan, Canada

I think thats why their operators, they don't get payed to know or care.

Posted 14 Oct 2005 06:23 AM

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Liftdoctor
Indiana, United States

If you are still running the trucks with this kind of abuse with 13,000 hours on the trucks, that is pretty good.   Maintenance costs are high on a truck in any application and 13,000 hours on the truck.

The management needs to hold the operators accoutable for damage.   If they don't know how, they need to contact the Crown dealer.   A dealer of any size will know customers who know how to hold the operators accountable for damage.  I am a field tech for a Crown dealer.  I have seen it all.  Some places are out of control as far as damage goes.  And some places know how to prevent their operators from damaging the equipment.  I don't know how the companies that control damage do it.  They just do.   The dealer I work for as a parts and service sales person that would know how to prevent damage.

I think the best thing that can be done is to have operators check out a truck before they use it and stay on that truck until they sign out.   If you have multiple operators jumping on and off different trucks, you can never keep track of who caused the damage.

Modified 22 Oct 2005 10:35 AM
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chewingyu
Singapore, Singapore

Wow, I chanced upon this forum I didn't know existed and it feels good to know I am not alone in experiencing the management of abuse to forklifts!

Isn't it really frustrating that we can get the best designed forklifts for the benefit of our operators but they don't care and just bash up the units!??

Do you guys experience operators who are too lazy to get down from their seats to push the forks to adjust the prong width? What they do is to bang the forks repeatedly on the floor while driving round and round in circles. This damages not only the floor but the fork as well! But this habit is soooooo hard to correct. Handed down from 'generations to generations'!!

Posted 28 Oct 2005 03:31 PM

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rtwrtgw
OHIO, United States

I understand your frustration. We just took ownership of 10 new lift trucks a month ago and they look like they are 5 years old. We try to keep everything in top running shape, but it makes it hard when the operators dont care. I wish we had the answers on how to keep abuse from happening. We have daily preshift meetings on safety and care, preshift inspections and they still get banged up real bad. Upper management seem to get excited about costly repaires, but will overlook induviduals operating practices till there is a problem. I have to keep so much extra stock around just to fix abusive problems that alot of my budget is spent on upkeep and not improvements.

Posted 10 Feb 2006 11:46 PM

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RPM7
Monaghan, Ireland

I've seen what operators try to do in pushing machines to their limits. Especially lifting a machine off the ground on two wheels. But when it comes to preventing damage to the cab, bonnets, hydraulic tank or the exhaust, combilift will customise machines with guards to give them that extra protection. As for the problem of operators who won't get out to adjust the forks, Just get fork positioners. They'll reduce the time an operator spends adjusting the forks manually or by spinning around in a circle and also prevent the damage to the machine or yard.

Posted 13 Feb 2006 11:16 PM

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InventoryOps
Wisconsin, United States

I don't mean to oversimplify this but your lift truck operators basically do what they are allowed to do. If you allow them to drive recklessly, they will do so. If your warehouse is a mess and the lift trucks constantly have to maneuver around stuff that shouldn't be there in the first place, you will have more damage.

Also realize that driving a lift truck is not like driving a car. A lift truck is constantly maneuvering with just inches or fractions of inches of clearance of racks, protective barriers, building structure, trailer walls, and other trucks and loads. They are undoubtedly going to get scratched up. This isn’t to make excuses for reckless driving but even very careful drivers hit or scrape things occasionally.

Posted 14 Feb 2006 04:38 AM

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brian_k
Virginia, United States

Thats true about what you said about the lift drivers doing just what they are allowed to do. Its up to management to correct wrong behavior. I had no say in how the equipment was treated or operated, not even when I was hit in a boom lift by one of those lifts. The managment there thought it was funny that I was bounced around in the basket like a "rubber ball" 20 feet in the air.
I do know that lifts will be scratched in normal day to day operations, but these drivers are playing "bumper cars" with 12000 lb lifts. I have seen this action while standing next to the dock supervisors and nothing was done. The main reason nothing was done was because that these lift drivers ran some of the highest numbers (picks).
This kind of poor managment is why I left Americold Logistics (Strasburg). The head office screams at the maint dept about the cost of upkeep for those lifts but it stopped there. Maint took the hit and it was left at that. I'm not sure if its like that at all of thier warehouses but I know that at Strasburg it will continue until some major changes are made. I have left the warehouse industry because of this and went back into printing where operators and managment alike show more concern for the equipment. There its understood the better you take care of your machines the better they will take of you.

Posted 14 Feb 2006 01:18 PM

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mike_n
Alberta, Canada

I remember coming into work one Monday morning only to find dead powerjacks (just to date myself, pal wr's) lined up outside the shop door.

I had comms where bars had literally turned molten and dripped out onto the gearbox!!

After some investigating, i found out the part timers were having a 'tractor pull.'
They put the jacks against each other and shoved to see which jack was the strongest.

The broken reach cyl. thing is o-so common with bad operators.

It's sad really that the managers will all start to blame maintenance, instead of taking care of the operator problems.

Posted 24 Feb 2006 09:23 AM

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