Newly Hired Drivers Behind the Controls of a Forklift
It seems there is no doubt that there is a lot of movement in the manufacturing industry. IndustryWeek reported on a survey released by BDO, an accounting and advisory firm, that manufacturing firms are taking a more offensive or proactive stance resulting in at least 10% growth. The survey consisted of CFOs from $500 million to $3 billion dollar manufacturers said, “22% plan to make an acquisition (versus 15% in 2024) and 25% expect they’ll enter into a joint venture or alliance of some sort (up from 14% last year).” This type of expected movement can be a heavy burden on safety professionals. With an increase in production comes an increase in hiring which means less experienced, or newly hired lift truck drivers behind the controls of a forklift.
Newly Hired Lift Truck Drivers Behind the Controls of a Forklift
As we have reported in previous articles, since the end of the pandemic, the more experienced, or over 50 years of age, forklift operators didn’t come back to work. Although we are not sure where they went, it left an empty hole that needed to be filled. By filling the gap with newly hired lift truck drivers behind the controls of a forklift, or less experienced drivers, not only did forklift incidents increase, according to the OSHA top 10 list, but new emerging issues are being tracked. The new areas being watched by OSHA are workplace violence and drugs. Not only have the issues of forklift incidents not been fixed, but the technology adoption has not been widely embraced or implemented as well. What will happen to those profits these CFOs are projecting?
The Adoption of AI Forklift Safety System Technology
Manufacturers are generally reluctant to purchase. But incidents keep persisting and cost the company’s money, affecting the bottom line. A forklift safety system like SIERA Ais is necessary for a few reasons: reducing incidents, injuries, deaths, damages, healthcare claims and other costs such as temporary workers. That’s a lot of categories to save.
What Does the AI Technology Do?
If your company is projecting growth and / or hiring more forklift drivers, then an AI based forklift safety system can reap benefits. The AI technology within the camera, scans every 60ms constantly searching for a person or object. The 10 year old forklift safety system has learned the difference between a person and an object. It has gone so far to identify a person bending, crawling or just 2 fingers sticking from behind a box. This is crucial to ensuring the safety of the workers.
Now that it has identified a person or object, it will give an audio and visual warning on the screen for gaining the attention of the forklift driver. It will provide the direction the person is in, and flash a symbol if it is a person or an object. The warning will go off only when the person or object comes within the pre-defined distance, which is what you set.
The Ultimate in Safety
The SIERA AI forklift safety system can go one step further. If you need the ultimate protection, then we can override the driver and automatically slow down the vehicle. This is when the driver decides to NOT listen to the warning and continues in the direction of the warning. This is to ensure an incident does not occur. This is the autoslow to a safe stop. To learn more about this solution, contact us today!
Contact Us!
Contact us today at sales@siera.ai or call us at (512) 817 0702.