How to Stop Forklift Drivers from Reckless Operation

Reckless forklift use happens at every facility. It when forklift operators decide to act in dangerous ways when driving or operating the forklift. Many of the reckless forklift use can include speeding, failing to properly position the forks or other attachments, and the most common, facility to pay attention to other vehicles or pedestrians at the end of an aisle or intersection.

Most Common Way to Stop Reckless Forklift Use

One of the most common ways plant managers or safety managers try to curb reckless forklift use is with training. Often, when forklift training occurs, it goes back to square one and retraining is repetitive and the forklift driver is being retrained on areas that they don’t have issues with. If retraining is a strategy, then tailor the training to what the issue is in order to make it more meaningful. However, what happens if the retraining (sometimes numerous times) doesn’t work.

Bring in Technology!

There are a few solutions out there that can help reduce to eliminate reckless forklift use. You need to evaluate the technology and choose carefully a solution that will benefit both the company and the operator. For instance, let’s say you’ve chosen to use an RFID solution with tape use on the floor. The solution can force the forklift truck to slow down and the end of each aisle. It’s true that it can fix the problem of speeding (and the only one as well), but what does it do to the driver’s productivity? Is management willing to reduce their workload? Probably not. So, if they are slowing down and time is used how does the driver make up for loss of productivity? The driver can’t.

Which Forklift Safety System Works?

It is a challenge to balance productivity with forklift safety solutions. Not all forklift monitoring systems are created the same. However, AI technology can be the most effective without losing productivity. Take for instance the SIERA.AI S3 Pedestrian Detection System. It should be called the S3 Pedestrian and Object Detection System because it can identify and alert when there is an object and when there’s a pedestrian. It is two different visual warnings.

The beauty of this is that it can go anywhere within the facility. It’s not stuck to tape or guides, the S3 PDS can go anywhere in the facility and it will be constantly scanning and alerting the same way. That’s what is important, the system alerts regardless of location. If there’s an issue it will alert the driver with visual and audio cues.

Reporting in the Telemetry Dashboard

Now if the driver continues, let’s say, to practice reckless forklift use, you’ll know with the S3 PDS. That’s because it will record all of the reckless forklift uses if the driver likes it or not. There’s no way around it. And, if the driver tries to deny it and say it wasn’t me, there’s a picture to show the proof that it was and what was going on at the time. No denying that now.

It’s all captured in the telemetry Dashboard. The forklift driver can be shown the number of near misses, low, medium and high impacts. The beauty of this Dashboard is to focus on where the issue are at. Maybe there’s some insights that can be had. For instance, let’s say there’s a lot of hard stops. We’ll classify those are near misses. You identify there are a great deal of near misses in aisle 12. You go down to aisle 12 and you just may find where and why the hard stops occur. This is a great way to fix the problem, eliminate it from the area so the near misses don’t one day become an impact.

What’s Next?

This is just one scenario where a pedestrian monitoring system can be of help. The best way to know how it can help you is to get a trial of the S3 PDS forklift safety system. It will help eliminate any reckless forklift use while keeping productivity at its peak. Contact us at sales@siera.ai to get a trial started in your facility today.