Avoid Crossing Paths with a Forklift During Peak Season

Forklift pedestrian monitoring is the best way to know when a pedestrian is in an area or within the vicinity of a forklift truck or even a pallet truck. EHS manager or safety managers are searching for solutions that watch for pedestrian in their facility. How can a busy facility watch out for pedestrians during their peak season?

What is Forklift Pedestrian Monitoring?

Forklift pedestrian monitoring is the ability to track and monitor the location of all pedestrians within a facility. Forklift drivers never know when a forklift driver is around, but if you use the forklift pedestrian safety solution like the S3 PDS or S3 pedestrian detection system you’ll know if there is a person or worker around.

What’s the Rule?

According to OSHA, they have some defined rules for forklift operators when pedestrians are present. Let’s take a look at a few of the requirements and best practices. OSHA recommends:

• Forklift drivers yield the right a way for pedestrians and workers

• When workers or pedestrians individually or within a group walks within your area, be sure to stop, wait until they completely pass and as you move forward, do so cautiously

• If the driver is within a crowded area, the driver needs to walk the route to identify any potential areas of risk. Communicate with pedestrians and ask them to move to ensure safe passage. Ensure the driver is aware to sound the horn at aisles, doorways, around corners and when backing up to ensure safety

• And, any signage can be helpful to pedestrians as well.

There’s additional information on the OSHA page such as reminders for the driver, pedestrians and plant managers. Great information to have on hand for a lunchbox training session.

Can Technology Help?

The safety industry has come a long way from blue lights and horns. Today, it can include forward thinking technologies such as artificial intelligence AI and machine learning together in order to reduce the responsibility on the forklift driver.

The forklift driver needs to get his work done. How can the driver get his work done if all the forklift driver is doing is watching for pedestrians and object all the time? Okay, the object doesn’t move, but pedestrians are in constant motion. If the driver already checked the area before backing up or working, the problem is you never know if there will be a pedestrian or worker passing by or behind the forklift right when the driver is about to move. This is where for forklift pedestrian monitoring can help.

S3 PDS or S3 Pedestrian Detection System

SIERA.AI offers pedestrian detection monitoring solution with its S3 Pedestrian Detection System. This allows the forklift driver to keep working and the pedestrian detection monitoring to be doing its thing, both at the same time. How does it work?

• The safety and/or plant manager decides when the warnings need to be enacted when a pedestrian or object is nearby. For instance, warn the driver when a person is 3’, 10’ all the way up to 33’. What distance is best for you?

• Let the driver begin his day…as usual. Remember, he has a quota to make each day and wants to do his job right….and without incident.

• When a pedestrian comes within the defined distance (as stated in the first bullet), it will give him and audio and visual warning. The visual warning is unique. If it is a person, it will show a picture of a person. If it’s an object, then a box will show symbolizing an object.

• The forklift driver will have time to take action by slowing down and avoiding an accident.

What If?

What if the forklift driver decides not to follow the warnings? Better yet, what if it’s not the right driver on the right truck? No worries, you’ll know. The S3 PDS will take a picture of the driver so you know who the individual is that didn’t do the job.

Tracking & Reporting

We didn’t go into it in this article, but we sure have in other articles. The S3 PDS comes automatically with a telemetry Dashboard. You’ll get all the tracking you need including near misses, low, medium and high impact along with data and pictures.

Ready for More?

Ask us for a demo of the S3 PDS. It’s the smartest forklift pedestrian monitoring system in the market. And, we can show you exactly how. Ready? Contact us at sales@siera.ai.