There’s a broad continuum, spanning from reactive to proactive approaches and encompassing passive, hybrid, and active solutions. Understanding the differences among them is key to assessing which tools best fit an operation’s challenges. With passive solutions, such as work lights, alarms, and mirrors, there is no input that the solution responds to, and the solutions are designed to enhance situational awareness without changing the lift truck’s performance. Active solutions, on the other hand, respond to certain conditions or events and automatically act on the incoming information — alerting the operator to change their behavior, altering the truck’s performance, or both. Hybrid solutions represent a middle ground, with some functions that require personnel to act on the information and others that do not.
Passive operator assist
Depending on the facility’s layout, lighting, and other factors, certain forklift lighting options can help reduce risk. Blue LED spotlights, strobe lights, and red zone lights optimize pedestrian visibility of approaching lift trucks. Similarly, backup and motion alarms can help provide audible warning that a lift truck is in close or immediate proximity.
Hybrid operator assist
Telemetry systems like Yale Vision™ provide a range of functions, some that require personnel to take action, and others that are active. For example, with location data, managers can identify lift truck congestion and areas that are prone to impacts and use that to influence facility layout and traffic patterns to remediate problem areas. From an active perspective, telemetry allows operations to digitize and confirm completion of OSHA pre-shift checklists and disable truck use until completed, and even restrict equipment access via keycards to only those operators with proper, current training certification.
A pedestrian awareness camera is another hybrid solution designed to boost operator awareness and help support overall warehouse safety. A new addition to the Yale Reliant™ portfolio, the pedestrian awareness camera, can identify pedestrians at ranges up to 16 feet through a 110-degree field of view and provides automatic alerts to the operator when a pedestrian is detected. Operations can choose for the system to provide audible and visual alerts only, or also opt for traction alerts that automatically and gradually slow down the lift truck.
Active operator assist
There are a variety of solutions to support reactive measures, but today technology also enables a proactive approach to complement those reactive layers of safety support. Yale Reliant active assist solutions help reinforce operating best practices by automatically adjusting lift truck performance based on real-time information from the truck and the environment.
Operations can also put automated lift trucks to work, reducing dependence on scarce, accident-prone labor and the risk of damage to equipment, inventory, and warehouse infrastructure. Yale Relay™ automated lift trucks are designed with almost a decade of customer insights in mind, to rethink how the work gets done in a more strategic, lasting manner.
Interested in more warehouse safety strategies? For practical insights from Yale’s experts, visit https://www.yale.com/en-us/north-america/promotions/warehouse-events/.
Contributed by Yale Lift Truck Technologies
