The Industrial Truck Association (ITA) created National Forklift Safety Day as an opportunity to educate customers, policymakers, and other stakeholders about the safe use of forklifts and the importance of effective operator and pedestrian training. Those topics were front and center at ITA’s 12th annual National Forklift Safety Day program, held June 10 in Washington, D.C.
The event kicked off with introductions by ITA President Brian Feehan and Brett Wood, ITA Chairman of the Board and President and CEO of Toyota Material Handling North America. They were followed by a panel of speakers who addressed a variety of forklift safety-related topics. The following are some highlights from those presentations:
Amanda Wood Laihow, Acting Assistant Secretary of Labor for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), said that although there has been much progress in improving forklift safety, in 2023 there were 67 forklift-involved workplace fatalities in private industry in the United States, and in FY 2024, OSHA issued more than 2,400 citations and $8 million in penalties related to powered industrial trucks. She lauded the ongoing shift from reactive to proactive safety efforts but noted that “safety efforts must evolve along with the equipment in use,” citing the example of driverless forklifts adding to the complexities of warehouse operations.
Laihow reviewed OSHA’s continuing priorities, including a concerted effort “to remove barriers to compliance at every level” while taking “a balanced approach” that values partnerships and compliance assistance alongside enforcement. She also highlighted the agency’s work on the impact of hazardous heat levels on workers and mental health issues like stress, anxiety, and burnout.
Ron Grisez, National Forklift Safety Day Chair and Director – Product Safety, Crown Equipment Corporation, discussed technology that helps operators improve safe behavior. Using examples from his own company’s offerings, he explained the benefits of a system that detects and records an impact, and can shut down the truck so a supervisor who goes to unlock it can immediately coach the operator; on-board screens that alert the operator to errors and reinforce desirable behavior; and object-detection systems that alert operators to the proximity of a pedestrian, another forklift, or other object and slow the truck while the operator takes steps to avoid a collision. Grisez cautioned that assistive technology as well as sound and visual alerts should be monitored for issues like habituation, confusion, transfer of responsibility to others, and annoyance.
“These systems have great potential as tools for coaching, but they do not eliminate pedestrians’ and operators’ responsibilities” to follow safety rules and correct forklift operation,” he said. “There is no substitute for well-trained and attentive operators.”
Jonathan Fortkamp, Senior Director – Health, Safety & Environment, DHL Supply Chain North America, outlined his company’s forklift safety program. The five basic steps, from most to least effective, include:
- Elimination: Remove the physical hazard
- Substitution: Replace the hazard
- Engineering controls: Isolate people from the hazard
- Administrative controls: Change the way people work
- PPE: Protect the worker with personal protective equipment
Fortkamp emphasized the need for clear, consistent, and clearly communicated safety policies and procedures, together with active engagement and feedback. The company also leverages such technologies as telematics, object detection systems, cameras, geofencing, and automated guided vehicles (AGVs). DHL Supply Chain has standardized its “train the trainer” program as well as its operator training materials, tools, and resources like videos and assessments across its DCs in North America. The company also uses “reactionary training” to safely simulate accidents to teach operators how to respond during an incident.
To encourage and reward safe operation, DHL Supply Chain used data from telematics systems and other platforms to develop a dashboard with a scorecard so operators and their supervisors can see how they are doing. The purpose, Fortkamp said, is “to identify who is at risk and coach them before they have an incident.” DHL’s three-year-old “Step Up for Safety” program, he said, has “changed the conversation” around safety by focusing on proactively encouraging safe behaviors and active engagement. As part of that effort, operators are awarded pins denoting different levels of achievement, along with other recognitions and rewards.
Lisa Brooks, Principal, Nexus HSE, advocated for thinking of safety as an organizational value, rather than as a priority, because priorities change, but a value is ingrained in the organization at all times. She described the evolution of a safety program as beginning with compliance (people are rewarded for obedience to rules); then moving to best practice (establishing safety as an organizational goal, and people are rewarded for exceeding the goals); and finally becoming a learning culture (with safety being seen as improvable, preventive, proactive, and collaborative, and employees are rewarded both for results and improving processes).
Brooks recommends that safety programs incorporate the principles of Human and Organizational Performance (HOP):
- Error is normal; even the best employees make mistakes.
- Listen to front-line workers, because they have unique operational intelligence, are problem solvers, and can handle unanticipated or dynamic change.
- Context (an organization’s processes, values, incentives, and operational systems) drives workers’ actions, choices, and decisions. People do what makes sense in particular circumstances under context. · Leadership’s response matters, especially concerning failures and unexpected outcomes. Post-event reviews should look at what worked and where the deficiencies are, and then how to improve systems to prevent future problems.
- Blame fixes nothing; it doesn’t help learning, cuts off communication, damages trust, and creates a “blame cycle” that impacts the organization’s culture.
- Improvement happens through learning. If people don’t learn before taking action, then changes may not actually make things better and could even harm an entire system inadvertently.
HOP is about operational excellence, Brooks said, and when those principles guide leaders’ and organizations’ actions, employees know that it is safe to speak up and share information about weaknesses and problems.
A video recording of the June 10 program will be available on ITA’s website for on-demand viewing at no charge. To watch the video, go to www.indtrk.org/national-forklift-safety-day.
