Would these 4 Forklift Safety Tips Help this Company from a $216k OSHA Fine
Have you ever wondered why there are so many forklift safety breaches? Here’s a recent example as reported by Business Insurance. OSHA cited Trader Joe’s after a December 2023 workplace inspection where it found numerous safety violations pertaining to forklift operations. OSHA cited Trader Joes for ‘lack of adequate safety training for forklift operators and failing to inspect forklifts’ at one of their locations. This is going to cost Trader Joes over $216k in penalties. By the way, this was not their first offence. Can these simple forklift safety breaches be avoided? Let’s take a further look.
The Cost of Forklift Safety Breaches
The violation cost at Trader Joes is a higher one. The violation costs can range from a few thousand on up. But is paying the price for the violations worth it? First, now that OSHA fined the company for safety violations, they are on OSHAs ‘radar’ or hot list. Meaning, they can and should expect more surprise visits in order to check if their policies have changed and the bad practice has stopped. If not, further violation costs will continue.
Second, let’s take a look at the cost to the business. Since the company allowed the violation to happen and potentially persist, how many orders did it take for them to pay the full $216k fine? Is that a day’s work, week or just an hour? Regardless, it cost plenty of money. Is that worth it? That’s for them to decide. But now that they’ve been fined and will be monitored, the company will need to change their ways to make it right. What’s that going to cost them now? Wouldn’t it have been cheaper to do it right to begin with? Maybe with the AI technology available today, they would be able to find efficiencies that would make them even more money. Let’s start with some basics.
Forklift Safety System – Forklift Checklist
An AI based forklift safety systems starts with the forklift checklist. This is for your pre-shift, post-shift, or any other time checklist to ensure safe operation of the forklift. Prior to the forklift operation, the driver needs to enter in a PIN number or scan the QR code to ensure a certified driver is on the machine.
Safety Tip 1: This avoids accidents, injuries, death and damages to those that are not certified. This will save the company money from future incidents.
Once approved, then the forklift checklist that pertains to that forklift automatically comes up on the screen. If the forklift checklist isn’t properly completed, the forklift inspection will fail.
Safety Tip 2: The forklift will not start if the inspection fails. In addition, management, maintenance and others will be notified of the failure.
Safety Tip 3: To ensure proper review and reading of the questions, the questions can be randomized. Great way to avoid forklift safety breaches.
Forklift Impact Detection
An AI based forklift safety system will monitor impacts. You, as the company can set your own G-force limit to determine low, medium and high impacts. These impacts, along with the forklift inspections noted above are monitored, recorded, tracked and reported in the telemetry Dashboard.
Safety Tip 4: You can set when you want to be notified of particular impacts, such as medium and high impacts. Now you can evaluate the situation and understand where and why it occurred.
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