Lift-truck safety: A job that never ends
While the commotion around OSHA’s lift-truck operator training standard has settled, employers need to remember that three-year recertification training is mandatory. Here are key strategies to integrate training into your day-to-day routine.
By William Atkinson -- Logistics Management, 5/1/2007
- Phases of training
- Keeping it in-house
- Training the trainer
- Call a consultant
- Turning to the manufacturer
- Warehouse and safety managers going it alone
- Resources
A lift truck is like nitroglycerin. In the right hands, it can save the very heart of a company's supply chain--the distribution center--from becoming clogged with inventory. In the wrong hands, it can endanger the lives of operators and pedestrians alike with explosive consequences. With that in mind, there's little question as to why the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has focused so much time and attention in recent years on operator training.
That's the good news. The bad news is that many companies still treat training as a project with a beginning and an end. Lift truck training is not a one-off project. It needs to be part of day-to-day industrial life and should be rolled into the warehouse management routine.
In an effort to better ease the training into the everyday mindset, many warehouse managers are either picking in-house role models to handle the training, training new trainers to carry the load, hiring outside consultants, or arranging for their teams to be trained at a local dealer.
But before you pick the route you should take, it is imperative to understand the benefits and drawbacks of each option.
Phases of training
OSHA's Powered Industrial Truck standard (CFR 1910.178(l)) requires all employees who operate any type of powered industrial truck to receive appropriate training. While virtually all employers are familiar with the requirement for initial training, not everyone is aware that OSHA training actually involves three phases:
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Initial training and evaluation.
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Refresher training and evaluation as needed. This is required if/when the operator is observed driving the vehicle unsafely; involved in an accident or near-miss incident; assigned to drive a different type of vehicle; or assigned to work in a different environment that could affect safe operation.
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Periodic evaluations (called "recertification"). This is required every three years to ensure that operators are continuing to use their skills and knowledge.
It's important to note that there are subtle nuances as well. For example, a similar style of truck from a different manufacturer does not require refresher training. However, a different style of truck--one with different operational features or different rated capacities--whether from the same manufacturer or another, would require refresher training.
The type and amount of refresher training needed depend on several factors, including the different characteristics of the new type of truck; the different characteristics of the new environment or terrain; the practice or practices that the evaluation indicated needed improvement; the nature of the unsafe act and/or the potential for an accident to occur.
Following the refresher training, the trainer must evaluate the operator to make sure the training has been effective. That is, all powered industrial truck operators must be recertified at least every three years. While this re-evaluation does not need to be formal or structured, the person conducting the evaluation needs to observe the operator during normal working conditions to determine whether he's performing safely and ask a few questions relating to the safe operation of the vehicle.
Employers are also required to keep records with the name of the trainee, the date of the training, and the signature of the person performing the training and evaluation. However, if employers use outside trainers and evaluators, they are not required to maintain training materials and information from these outside trainers/evaluators.
Keeping it in-house
In most cases, employers arrange for qualified individuals in their own organizations to handle the refresher training (as needed) and the recertification (every three years as required by OSHA). As a matter of fact, according to a survey of 95 readers recently conducted by Logistics Management, 46 percent of respondents use an in-house expert to manage the training processes (see figure).
These individuals are usually experienced operators, safety personnel, training personnel, or line supervisors. Again, employers can use their discretion in selecting someone, as long as they are capable of performing the training and recertification responsibilities.
While an in-house program is certainly acceptable and appropriate, there are some things to consider that may make the use of a third party more appropriate, according to Gary Middleton, owner of Safety Is Us (Ft. Worth, Texas), which provides forklift training. "In a lot of cases, the employers make plans to handle these responsibilities in-house, but they get busy, things fall through the cracks, and they never get around to it," says Middleton.
"In addition, while employers may have people on the inside who are qualified to do the recertification, these individuals can sometimes become blind to some of the unsafe things the drivers are doing because they see it so often or they are in a hurry to get their work done," Middleton adds. However, if done properly and that trainer has the time and resources to establish appropriate processes, internal refresher training and recertification can work well.
Training the trainer
With the train-the-trainer option, an employer arranges to have designated individuals receive outside training on how to handle refresher training and recertification. These individuals usually attend training sessions off-site at safety association seminars or a forklift manufacturer's seminars. If a company is large enough, however, a consultant or other qualified trainer may agree to come on-site to train an employee's designated individuals.
"Some companies require that their trainers be retrained every couple of years," says Brooke Beyerle, senior consultant trainer with Orr Safety Corporation (Louisville, KY.), which provides train-the-trainer services. In most cases, according to Beyerle, the company selects experienced lift truck drivers who have demonstrated good communication skills and professional responsibility.
One benefit to going this route, says Beyerle, is that the in-house people are very familiar with all of the trucks in their company, both in terms of the manufacturer and class of truck. A consultant probably has general familiarity with most trucks, but not the detailed knowledge of the specific trucks the company uses
One potential drawback, however, is that while most in-house lift truck stars have the knowledge and experience, they sometimes have problems with the classroom portion of the training. "To deal with this part we have our trainers actually get up in front of our classroom of trainers and they teach each other and get feedback on how they performed," says Beyerle.
Call a consultant
Using an outside consultant also has two big benefits, says Beyerle. "The first is that consultants are usually better trainers than in-house people, especially when the in-house people are operators themselves who often don't have a lot of experience in training or in formal communication skills," he says. The second benefit, according to Beyerle, is that the consultant can bring in experience from accidents at other companies and use them to illustrate their training points.
Gary Middleton of Safety Is Us says he gets involved in refresher training and recertification with clients fairly often. He offers a couple of recommendations to employers who plan to go the consultant route. "First, set a tickler note at 'Month 34' to call the consultant to arrange for that person to come in by 'Month 36,'" says Middleton. Second, while the recertification process doesn't need to be complex and formal, don't select a consultant who makes it too casual. "The consultant should engage in careful observation, and not just pass people for the sake of passing them," he emphasizes. "That is, if the consultant does notice a problem, he or she should do something about it."
Turning to the manufacturer
Most lift-truck manufacturers offer safety training and refresher training. The most common way is for the manufacturers to train individuals in their dealerships, who, in turn, provide training to customers--a train-the-trainer program, in a manner of speaking.
Toyota Material Handling U.S.A. (Irvine, Calif.) does just that. In addition, some companies may on occasion send in some of their trainers, and Toyota will train them directly, so they can go back and do their own training in-house. "We provide our dealers with safety training kits, which include all of the manuals, exams, videos/DVDs, and everything else they need to put on a class," says Pat Huebel, national training and customer care center operations manager at Toyota.
Even though the material is geared toward training operators on Toyota trucks, the information is applicable to any truck a company has on the floor. "For example, they can have a fleet from another manufacturer and still participate in our training," says Huebel, who adds that Toyota's program exceeds OSHA requirements.
The Raymond Corp. (Greene, N.Y.) offers the "Safety on the Move" program which is specifically designed for Raymond equipment. Raymond dealer personnel will travel to a customer site to do the training. "Alternatively, customers can travel to Raymond or a dealer to receive the training," says Mike Angelini, manager, field training services. The company can also train customer personnel in the program so they can return to their facilities and conduct the training themselves. In these cases, company trainers visit Raymond for about four days to be trained in the proper delivery of the program.
And while manufacturer-dealer-rep training can be comprehensive, it's important to make sure that it does more than just focus on the equipment. Before becoming a consultant, Orr Safety's Beyerle worked for several insurance companies where he became familiar with manufacturer training programs.
"One thing I noticed was that they usually emphasized the equipment, in terms of how it operates, the handling characteristics, and how to do the inspections," he recalls. "However, a large percentage of accidents are not due to mechanical problems, but rather to driver error." While focusing on the equipment is critical, Beyerle adds that trainers need to spend as much time on driver behavior and defensive driving as possible.
Whether you choose to source training expertise from outside or inside your organization, remember that the outcome--safety--is the employer's responsibility. And, it will always be.
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A large percentage of employers prefer to do their own lift truck training. One such company is Eastman Kodak Co. (Rochester, N.Y.) which employs about 10 lift truck operators. "We automatically do retraining and recertification every year," says William Plank, health, safety, and environmental coordinator as well as warehouse operations coordinator for the company in its San Fe Springs, Calif., facility. Plank received train-the-trainer education and certification through the Southern California Safety Council in a two-day program. The first day, says Plank, focused on learning the critical training information, the second focused on how to actually train people. With this information, Plank says he was been able to handle refresher training and recertification responsibilities with few problems. Another company that does in-house training is APL Logistics, a global supply chain and logistics services provider. Until last year, APL let each of its 75 warehouse locations (in North America and Latin America) select their own outside training providers, including safety associations, consultants, and manufacturers' reps. "The problem was that their approaches were not unique to our company policies or the specific behaviors that have led to accidents in our warehouses," says Dixie Brock, national warehouse safety manager. For example, while OSHA allows operators to be up to 25 feet away from their forklifts while in operation, one of APL's locations has a policy that allows operators to be no more than 10 feet away, so their training and testing uses this information. Prior to implementing a formal program, APL's retraining and recertification activities tended to be informal. "For example, when we asked locations to show documentation of these activities, a lot of times they were unable to do so," states Brock. APL considered a train-the-trainer program. However, since it has so many locations, the company realized it would end up in situations where APL individuals would receive training from outside organizations, but would then end up moving on to other positions--creating a revolving door. "We didn't want to have to be constantly retraining people," adds Brock. With the internal program, APL trains its own people, and the company can train as many people as it wants at each location and on each shift. Like Kodak, APL arranges for annual retraining of all operators, even though this is not required by OSHA. "We studied our data on the causes of accidents," continues Brock. "This showed us where we needed to focus. Some of these were incidents that are not covered in specific by OSHA regulations." In turn, APL created a Training-Retraining Checksheet. If an operator has an accident, the supervisor checks the appropriate box on the sheet based on the incident--for example, if an operator is in close proximity to other employees. And, after the retraining, a document is completed that includes the date, operator's name, the topic that was covered, and who did the retraining. |
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General information on Forklift Training, Certification, Refresher Training, and Recertification Requirements Selected Consultants Providing Training and Certification Selected Manufacturers Providing Training and Certification Toyota (Click on "Training.") Raymond (Click on "Solutions," then "Operator Training.") Caterpillar (Click on "Training.") Mitsubishi (Click on "Training.") |
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