Reduce Forklift and Product Damage at the Same Time

It never fails. Forklift damage occurs each day within the facility and you never find out about it right away. That’s because the drivers and even the workers try to hide it, or keep putting it off to the side until it can’t be out of site. Forklift damage comes in many ways: product or the customer’s product can be damaged by the forklift truck as it is being lifted, transported or placed into truck on the docks. But let’s not forget. If the product or pallet that the product is on becomes damaged, then chances are the forklift itself will be damaged.

Product damage and forklift downtime are a continual drain on the company’s resources and profits. However, experienced warehouse managers and facility managers know how to prevent forklift and product damage with new technologies such as forklift safety systems by SIERA.AI. This improvement of technology makes a big difference by saving budget dollars and improving the safety of the workers.

What are Causes of Forklift Damage?

It’s easy to automatically blame the forklift driver for just about everything that goes wrong. Many will blame the forklift driver for driving too fast, turning sharp corners, and/or driving with unbalanced loads. However, it’s not always their fault, there are other factors that contribute to forklift damage. With or without the forklift driver, the facility continues to sustain damage. Here are some ways facilities can sustain damage:

• product sticks out from the racking system or was left on the floor
• facility garbage or debris was left on the floor
• pallets are damaged, overloaded or crooked sticking out from storage

Damage is caused not only to the product, but also to the facility like the racking system, damage to the floor as well as to the forklift itself.

How to Prevent Forklift Damage?

The best way to prevent forklift damage and damage to the facility and product is to invest in a forklift safety system. During the working day, there are numerous obstacles that can arise that can cost time, and damage to the facility, product and the forklift itself. How can this be avoided?

When the forklift driver moves about the facility, the forklift driver will need to do nothing but take action when a warning is triggered. The forklift safety system technology works by scanning every 60ms searching for people or products. The information taken in by the camera is then transferred to the ‘brain’ of the system which then read and interprets its findings in seconds. If it is a person, the forklift will continually flash a symbol of a person along with an audio alert to the forklift driver. If it is an object, like what we’re talking about today, then a symbol of a flashing box along with an audio alert will notify the forklift driver that an object is nearby.

Now the only thing the forklift operator needs to do is slow down, assess the situation and proceed with caution.

Summary

Now that the driver knows he has an extra set of eyes working in his/her favor to keep safe, the driver can focus on the work at hand. Be sure to read our previous article so you can learn more about data collected from the forklift safety system. When you’re ready, contact us today at sales@siera.ai or call us at (512) 817 0702.