After several years in Ohio, he accepted an assignment at Crown’s European headquarters in Munich, Germany, to conduct research and begin design work to update the company’s pedestrian stacker products. Later, he worked at Crown’s Asia-Pacific headquarters in Sydney, Australia, developing additional pedestrian stacker trucks. “Although I did not realize it at the time, those international assignments from over 20 years ago provided me with an appreciation for global forklift uses and applications that I still rely on to this day,” he says.
Grisez became Crown’s assistant manager of product safety in 2007 and director of product safety in 2014. In that capacity, he contributes his expertise not only to his own company but also to domestic and international standards organizations.
In his role as National Forklift Safety Day chair, Grisez spoke with DC Velocity about forklift safety past, present, and future. (The interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.)
Q: What aspects of the forklift industry do you especially enjoy or find most rewarding?
A: I enjoy assisting in all aspects of making Crown Equipment’s products safe for operators and those who work around our equipment. This includes working with our design teams and creating and reviewing on-product warnings, operator manuals, and training materials.
I also participate in and contribute to several organizations that are deeply committed to promoting safety in forklift design and use. I have been attending ANSI/ITSDF [American National Standards Institute/Industrial Truck Standards Development Foundation] B56 and ITA General Engineering Committee meetings since 2007. I have also been fortunate to travel around the world as part of the U.S. delegation representing ANSI at ISO [International Standards Organization] meetings. Within the B56 Standards Committees, experts comprising users, manufacturers, and others must form a consensus before updates are made and published in any safety standard. Collaborating with others in these organizations, who come to the table with different experiences and perspectives, is particularly satisfying. It is a privilege that only a few subject-matter experts in our industry have the opportunity to experience.
Q: Has forklift safety improved in recent years? What is better now than when you started in this industry?
A: Having been in the industry for 31 years, I have witnessed a major shift in forklift safety that started nearly 25 years ago. The original OSHA [Occupational Safety and Health Administration] training requirements lacked specific guidance to employers on what constituted acceptable training. Unfortunately, this resulted in operators not always being provided with the necessary information to safely operate forklifts. ITA recognized this gap and worked with OSHA to update its training regulations.
In December 1998, OSHA’s Final Rule on Powered Industrial Truck Operator Training revised [Code of Federal Regulations Section] 1910.178(l) to detail the required truck-specific and site-specific operator training that we are all familiar with today. In that rule, OSHA predicted a significant reduction in operator errors with an expectation that accidents would also be reduced by about the same percentage.
Crown’s experience has been consistent with OSHA’s prediction. Crown collects and analyzes accident reports for the purpose of monitoring and understanding how its products are used and misused in the field. By doing so, we are able to review those reports to better understand accident trends. For example, by the end of 2010, Crown’s data showed that for our end-controlled stand-up rider trucks, OSHA’s prediction was correct, as accident rates had declined by approximately 68%. Since then, Crown’s data shows that accident rates have remained low.
I believe that the OSHA Final Rule on Powered Industrial Truck Operator Training, which went into effect in 1999, had—and continues to have—the largest impact in the powered industrial truck industry on operator and pedestrian safety.
Q: Are there areas you think need further improvement or attention from fleet operators?
A: Supervision. Outside of initial training and triennial refresher training, the individuals who have the greatest opportunity to impact operator behavior and safe operation are the supervisors.
A proposal that was introduced to the ANSI/ITSDF B56.1 Subcommittee included requirements that those responsible for supervising operators be trained on how to reinforce operator safety rules and practices and to correct unsafe operator behavior or performance. The safety rules and practices were already outlined in the B56.1 safety standard, which is available for free at www.itsdf.org. The proposal was incorporated in the 2016 revision of the ANSI/ITSDF B56.1 safety standard.
Users can create a supervisor training program based on the requirements in the B56.1 safety standard. If necessary, I would encourage users to reach out to their local dealers to see if they have training materials that are specifically for supervisors. Crown, for example, created DP LeadSafe, a Demonstrated Performance training program for supervisors of all levels of experience, including those who have and those who have not gone through forklift operator training themselves.
Q: Safety-enhancing operator-assist technologies are becoming more common. What should users know about them?
A: LiDAR, camera, AI, and ultrawide-band technology, as well as other assist features, have been discussed in previous years by Cesar Jimenez from Toyota and Ed Stillwell from Hyster-Yale Group. Crown is releasing its LiDAR-based solution, the ProximityAssist System. These technologies on manually operated powered industrial trucks are still in their infancy and will continue to be developed and refined in the coming years.
Just as they do when considering the adoption of warning devices such as travel alarms, floor spotlights, and flashing lights, users must determine whether assist features provide benefits in their particular application. If so, it is important for the user to determine how best to configure these features to address their specific needs. We expect this process to involve multiple iterations to adjust these features so they will provide optimal benefits to operators in their particular application. What may work for one user may not work at all for others with similar operating conditions.
While these assist features may help to alert operators of potential hazards in their environment, it is important to note that such assist features do not eliminate the responsibility of operators and pedestrians to be aware of each other and maintain a safe working environment. Operators must be fully trained and capable of operating the lift truck in a safe manner with or without the assist feature.
Similar to warning devices, safety considerations and dangers associated with operator-assist features can include:
- Multiple lift trucks in the same vicinity, with each passive operator-assistance feature producing alerts, can cause confusion for operators and pedestrians.
- Operators and pedestrians may become annoyed with and/or begin to ignore the operator-assist feature alerts from day-in and day-out exposure.
- Operators may transfer their responsibility for “looking out” to the pedestrians; similarly, pedestrians may transfer their responsibility to watch for lift trucks to the operator-assist feature.
These assist features are not a replacement for OSHA-required operator training.
Q: Why does National Forklift Safety Day matter to DC Velocity’s readers?
A: Although the event is only one day—June 10 this year—I believe it provides a yearly opportunity for the industry to re-center itself and focus on forklift safety, and for users to reinvigorate the attention of their workforce, supervisors, and operators on proper and safe forklift operation. Safe operation is a significant factor in helping operators and those who work around them to go home each day without injury.
