Hello. I don't know much about forklifts and also English is not my native language, so I am really sorry if I sound a little..."rough" with explaining my problem.

So my company bought a forklift for our warehouse. Because of reasons with no relevance, I called some guys to make a custom metal platform so that the forklift can lift people. Its quite heavy duty, with railings all around and as high as your chest so that you just can't fall. The platform itself sits on 2 of those hollow, rectangular metal beams. The forks of the forklift just go inside these beams (all the way, and they show on the other side) and that is how it lifts the platform.

Now because this is metal contacting other metal, the entire thing is quite slippery (I expected this). Even though the platform probably weighs around 300 kg (650-700 pounds), I can actually single-handedly slide it right out from the forks by pulling it. As an obvious risk, I told my guys to find a solution to this.

Their solution was to use the fork positioner. You put the forks inside and then attempt to increase the spacing between the forks (using hydraulics). This way the forks are applying constant sideways pressure and the platform can't slide. While this works, the vertical parts of the forks are visibly sideways and that constant pressure on the entire mechanism really makes me feel uneasy. What is the chance that something might brake?