At ProMat this year I looked at a system from Keytronics who mfg's forklift monitoring systems. I was impressed with the fact that this system goes beyond the general impact monitor and can notify of an impact by email notification, this is just a small example of the systems capabilities. I am ordering the Keytronic system on our next new machine and will put it to the test. Keep in mind any system is only as good as your company's policies.

One of my customers just got so fed up with forklifts hitting posts, overhead doors, and each other, installed surveillance cameras. Someone's job is to watch operations. Anyone hitting something is given 3 days off, no pay, to think about how to drive better. A 5 year employee just spent Tues.- Thurs. at home.

Many valid suggestions by many professionals and our friend, who seems to have tried everything, is still troubled.

Simple! Besides all else, hit them in their wallets. Everytime they strike a column, fine them, 2,3,5 dollars. Collect the money and use it for a company summertime bRbque or Christmasy thingy. Keeps you out of trouble with the union, should keep everyone from driving into the columns. And I am serious!

Jeff,
Tried to put it in and it would not let me, see my profile and there is my company just put sales in front of rack with no space protect and then a com afterwards

Andrew - you're email ?

Jeff,
I have recently seen and evaluated a product that might help you with your problem.It is not available in the USA/CA market yet and wee are looking for test sites to see if it would eliminate this specific problem.It works extremely well at Aisle ends but we get a lot of calls for your type problem. Please contact me directly for more info.
Not wishing to be mysterious but it is still patent pending.
Andrew Jordan take out the no spam
NO SPAM ([email address removed])

The driver is not allowed to operate until the investigation is complete, the UA has cleared, and they have passed recertification as a forklift operator. If they have three or more incidents with-in a year they are then evaluated by the management lead team. It has been effective for us but it comes down to setting an example by staying with-in the policy we have set forth which could be anything from retraining to termination.

In the event one of your drivers has an accident, what steps do you take ? Is the driver pulled off the truck, is there "re-training", discipline, etc. ?

I think limiting the speed has helped us to a point. We also have incident investigations that involve several people, offending department lead, UA, and recertifications. One other thing we do is keep a metric of all forklift damage with a $ amount to each incident and then share that with our lead team. The SPA for that is our maintenance department who eventually see the reported or not reported damage. The bottom line for us is accountability at the department lead and first line supervisor levels. The first year we started our metric tracking we had $70,000 worth of damage the very next year it dropped $22,000. It takes time and dedication to accomplish this but; it has paid off with less damage, safer environment for our operators, and pedestrians, and a real cost savings as a bonus.

We have governed the trucks speed as you have. I don't think speed is the problem. I think it comes down to drivers being focused and aware of their surroundings. We are currently revising our forklift policy with the intent to improve how we deal with accidents/incidents.

Have you tried limiting the travel speed? We have an indoor speed limit of 5mph and outdoor speed limit of 7mph. It has cut the travel speed in half but productivity has not been affected much. We have the Yale VX series forklifts so setting and experimenting with speeds has been easy.

Sounds like you and your company have done everything you can to prevent this - except for making the operators responsible for their own actions. Union shop or not, if someone was stood by these colums they would now most likely be dead - no union in the world would condone this. First off operator selection is important, responsible attitude is very important. The operator has to face consequences for their actions, maybe a fine system, loss of bonus, job demotion? As in life itself people have to be made responsible for their own actions, if you or your company are accepting full responsibility for your operators maybe thats the root cause of the problem ? (IMHO)

If the operators can not see the obstacles, adding a mirror or camera system may help to prevent damages and accidents.

Products like Shockwatch are intended to disable the forklift after a collision to make it possible to identify the operator.

Typically it is aisle traffic. Sometimes the trucks have a load, sometimes they don't. In many cases, there has been 20ft or more between the column and the next obstacle. I'm going to try the suggestion of marking out the floor around the column in a few spots and see what kind of feedback I get from the operators.

jeff m:

Are the columns being hit by aisle travel? If so, should the loads be trailing? Are the columns being hit by spotting from the aisle? If so, are the columns obstructed by the load being spotted? How congested is your facility? Are aisle widths adequate?

I recommend you stop random forklift operations and get in the operator's seat to determine yourself the actual visibility? If it is a visibility problem, you will know what the operators may be up against trying to maintain production levels.

Without seeing your facility layout and the actual forklift movement, this is just a shot in the dark. If it were my problem, I would start by determining the visibility factor including if operators can see your safety markings from the operator's seat with varying loads.