Running a fleet of forklift trucks requires careful management of the workload and productivity of the drivers. Unseen costs are to be avoided wherever possible and there are also important health and safety issues to be addressed concerning adequate training of drivers and the prevention of accidents and cost of subsequent damage. A daunting task for fleet control and H&S managers alike.
However, thanks to the ShockWatch ImpactManager forklift monitoring and control system from damage deterrent specialists Lamerholm, the Health and Safety Department at Geo Adams has virtually eliminated damage caused by careless driving throughout his factories. ShockWatch
ImpactManager is a compact unit that is easily mounted in the vehicle cab. It detects impacts and records event details such as date, time and driver ID.
"We have installed ShockWatch ImpactManager on 7 of the forklift trucks at our Ruskington site." explains Paul Maslen, Health and Safety Site Co-ordinator at Tulip Foods, who acquired Geo Adams in October 2007. "We were experiencing a fair amount of damage due to inattentive driving and although we had no driver injuries, some of
the collisions resulted in a disruption to our work
patterns, which was just not acceptable."
The fleet of forklifts run by Geo Adams includes two reach trucks that move in and out of the cold storage area, two Nissan electric vehicles that are used for both internal and external duties, flexitrucks for
moving the packaged food crates or boxes within the dry storage area and a counterbalance truck for outside yard work.
"We were amazed at the difference the monitoring equipment made to the safety of our drivers and damage now ceases to be an issue. As well as providing timely impact information, use of the ShockWatch
ImpactManager increases operator accountability and therefore improves driver behaviour." says Paul.
Impact monitoring capability comprises a patented, fully adjustable, 360° impact sensor. Once a collision is detected, the time, date and driver ID are recorded and stored in the memory downloading and further investigation and analysis. In addition to monitoring and recording, the ShockSwitch Impact Manager can be programmed to immobilise the truck once an impact has occurred. There is also an option for activating a siren or truck horn either continuously or for a specified period of time. This is a particularly useful safety feature to alert other personnel to check for injury. The truck can also be completely disabled.
The ShockWatch ImpactManager Windows NT, 2000 and XP software is at the heart of the system allowing managers to set parameters and analyse the resulting data, the power of which allows better decision making when it comes to reducing damage and injury costs.