Can a Forklift Safety Culture Alone Reach 100%
Fostering a rich forklift safety culture is an important part of maintaining safety. An article from DC Velocity for the 2020 Forklift Safety Day said, “…it is possible to develop an environment where every employee and contractor actually does consider safety to be his or her responsibility and does think about it throughout the workday.” This means that every part of the organization, whether it be horizontal or vertical, believes that safety is paramount, and they will do what it takes to uphold that belief. As they go on to discuss in the article that behavior based safety programs use human psychology to overcome non-conformance. The question remains: If a company places efforts to believing and implementing a safe environment, does that mean accidents are stopped or eliminated? Nothing more is needed to foster a forklift safety culture?
What is a Forklift Safety Culture?
There are some that say a forklift safety culture is about looking out for each other. Others say that it’s about risk awareness, or the use of best practices. Some try to put a more wholistic definition to it such as, forklift safety culture is how a company manages safety along with beliefs, attitudes and individual actions. And the answer to all of it is ‘yes’, or ‘sure’. But does the forklift safety culture make an impact on reducing forklift accidents?
Can Forklift Accidents Still Occur?
Even in the best of forklift safety cultures, issues can remain. Not everyone complies. As new employees are brought on, the company expresses their desire or demand for safety. “This is what we do.” That person says yes and tries to comply as best as possible, but it will not be 100% to the way the company desires. The next person is brought on, same thing, and on it continues. All with a percentage of the desired outcome, but never at the 100%. As a result, people will still be people…good intentions and all.
Technology Needs to be Considered
Just choosing any type of forklift safety system won’t do the trick. That’s because there are a variety of forklift safety systems that use different technologies, most have wearables. This is where the worker needs to wear a device around the neck, or a vest in order for the technology to recognize the person. However, this doesn’t identify objects nor does it cover the entire facility on the inside, nevermind the exterior of the facility. Choosing the right technology is the best way to go in order to prevent OSHA forklift violations.
But, shortcuts still happen, accidents still occur.
Forklift Safety System
Even in the best environments, everyone needs a forklift safety system. AI technology and the reason why it works, is because it takes the learning minus the emotions. It does its job of constantly scanning every 60ms for a person or an object in the path of the forklift. It delivers warnings to the forklift driver so the driver takes corrective action. And if the forklift operator doesn’t, well that’s fine too. It will stop you ahead of time. That’s what a forklift safety system does to reduce, avoid or maybe eliminate accidents all together. It ensures safety, it’s the catchall for those who choose not to comply, or simply human, a person that can make a mistake.
As the forklift moves about with a forklift safety system, it’s also collecting that data. Giving you the information necessary to make the adjustments for a true forklift safety culture by providing the proof to the behavior and what can be done to change. This is the fastest, most effective way to maintain the forklift safety culture your company desires.
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