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Brian Feehan, President, Industrial Truck Association
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity :
The industry stresses the importance of forklift safety. Covid-19 is revealing holes in IT infrastructure. And workers at logistics facilities demonstrate why Black Lives Matter.
Pull up a chair and join us as the editors of DC Velocity discuss these stories, as well as news and supply chain trends, on this week's Logistics Matters podcast. Hi, I'm Dave Maloney. I'm the editorial director at DC Velocity. Welcome.
Logistics Matters is sponsored by Forta. Fortna partners with the world's leading brands to transform their distribution operations to keep pace with digital disruption and growth objectives. Known worldwide as the distribution experts, Fortna designs and delivers intelligent solutions powered by their proprietary software to optimize fast, accurate, and cost effective order fulfillment. For more information, visit Fortna.com.
As usual, our DC Velocity senior editors Ben Ames and Victoria Kickham will be along to provide their insight into the top stories of the week. But to begin today, I'd like to introduce our guest. Brian Feehan is president of the Industrial Truck Association. For more than 60 years, the ITA has been the leading organization of industrial truck manufacturers, and suppliers of component parts and accessories, throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico. And when we speak of industrial trucks, we primarily mean forklifts.
Welcome, Brian. Good to have you with us today.
Brian Feehan, President, Industrial Truck Association :
Thank you, Dave. It's a pleasure to be here.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity :
Can you tell us a bit more about the work of the ITA, the Industrial Truck Association?
Brian Feehan, President, Industrial Truck Association :
Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate the question. As you mentioned, the Industrial Truck Association has been around for over 60 years. As a matter of fact, we're going to be celebrating 70 years next year, in 2021. So we're looking forward to that. And really, the three main pillars of our organization is working with the manufacturers of powered industrial trucks to the OEMs as well as their supply chains. We have really two categories of members. One is the OEMs—the original equipment manufacturers—and then the suppliers that provide components, parts, and accessories to those manufacturers.
And the organization really is three main pillars.
One is the statistics component, so we have a very sophisticated statistical database that our manufacturers use in a variety of different functions, including measuring the market, looking at the trends in the industry, and trying to figure out exactly where they need to be in the future by looking at what's been taking place from a very detailed statistical approach.
And then the other component is our general engineering committee, where we work as a[n] industry on safety issues and other engineering issues that are affecting the industry, and making sure that we're at the forefront of any new developments that may be applicable to the powered industrial truck industry.
And then the third component is, when I mentioned, from our supplier standpoint, utilizing the expertise that a lot of the suppliers and the ITA's associate members bring to the industry, from battery technology, to fuel cell technology, to all the other various components that are focused on the powered industrial truck industry.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity :
You mentioned safety as a part of that. And the main reason we asked you to join us today is to talk about National Forklift Safety Day, which was held this past week. What does that event recognize?
Brian Feehan, President, Industrial Truck Association :
Well, Safety Day was created seven years ago. And, you know, safety has always always been paramount to our industry, it always will be first and foremost. When we created the concept around safety, we were trying to create an event that would enable the industry to kind of highlight the need for operator training. And this is one event that we put together where everybody in the industry is unified behind it. They take off their company hats, they put on their industry hats, and everybody focuses on safety. And as we all know, safety's 365 days a year. And this is one day that we focus on safety, but it really, it's an awareness event. And it's an awareness event that we try to use to highlight safety and the need for operator training, because operator training is demonstrated repeatedly to reduce injuries and accidents that take place in the workspace.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity :
And this year, due to the ongoing pandemic, the event was virtual, rather than your usual meeting that you've done in previous years in Washington, D.C. How did being virtual change the event for you?
Brian Feehan, President, Industrial Truck Association :
Well, it was an interesting time, to be honest with you, not only because of the Covid-19, but, as you mentioned, doing this virtually. So a lot of new technical barriers that we have never focused [on] or had to approach before. So it was interesting, you know. We wanted to make sure that we didn't, just because of the Covid-19, you know, there's an awful lot of people that are still using powered industrial trucks, especially the essential workers in the essential industries. The second Tuesday of every June, National Forklift Safety Day, we wanted to be consistent in our timing. We also want to be consistent in our messaging. And again, it's the awareness component. And so we thought even more importantly, now, is to continue to have some awareness, and the National Forklift Safety Day does that for us. So we were able to—through the help of DC Velocity, thank you so much—we were able to organize the speakers, and I thought it was pretty good. We actually were able to expand the normal reach, if you will, in terms of the actual day. The awareness is an ongoing component of it, but the actual day itself, we had a number of viewers that we probably would not have been able to attract in Washington, D.C.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity :
But you mentioned, of course, safety and the work that your members do year-round to promote safety. And obviously, a moving forklift within an industrial setting or warehouse or a manufacturing facility has the potential to cause damage as well as injury. So why is that important that your members promote safety within the industry?
Brian Feehan, President, Industrial Truck Association :
Well, safety is a primary component of what everybody does. We all need to work in a safe work environment. I think we've heard from Loren Sweatt [of OSHA] during the Safety Day event, all the various tools and resources and the need for promoting operator training and safety. You know, it's obviously, you know, injury and accidents, and everybody should go to work and everybody should come home safely. And that's really the whole point behind our safety message, is developing a culture behind safety and recognizing that safety is not just one day, but it's 365 days a year, and the safe environment is a good work environment.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity :
And one of your sessions also dealt with pedestrian safety too, which is one factor that a lot of people don't think about when they talk about operator training and operator safety. There are a lot of other workers in the facility, too ,that are around us lift trucks when they're moving around.
Brian Feehan, President, Industrial Truck Association :
Yeah, Chuck Leon from Canada—Ontario, Canada—that spoke about pedestrian safety, in which, I think you mentioned these sessions are available for viewing on DC Velocity or the Industrial Truck Association's website, and I highly encourage everybody to take a look at them. But pedestrian safety is certainly something that's, is prevalent in many warehouse facilities. But also, as Chuck mentioned, it's not only in the warehouse, but it's also out on the docks and it could be even beyond that. So that certainly is an area that we are going to continue to focus on, is creating additional awareness on safety when it comes to pedestrians. It's a big, it's a big area for us to focus on moving forward.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity :
I know the pandemic has affected a lot of the individual celebrations or recognitions of National Forklift Safety Day that may have taken place around the country. But what are your member companies able to do as a way of promoting safety and recognizing National Forklift Safety Day?
Brian Feehan, President, Industrial Truck Association :
Well, you're right. Traditionally, in years past—and hopefully we will see it again—on National Forklift Safety Day, not only ITA members, but also people in the industry across the United States, and now across the world, have been supporting National Forklift Safety Day by conducting open houses and having different various events at their facilities, offering training, offering safety classes, providing materials. So with the pandemic in place, a lot of the support that we've seen—and there has been quite a bit of support—has been through—virtually. And so, we had a many OEMs as well as dealers, supporting Safety Day this year through social media components, through virtual training, through offering virtual training, as well offering new components and programs designed around safety. And a lot of them use National Forklift Safety Day as a launching pad to introduce some of these new products and some of these new programs that each company may have.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity :
With Covid-19, obviously, cleanliness within facilities is important, and you have more than one operator, typically, operating a forklift, especially for companies that have various shifts throughout the day. Are your member companies doing anything in particular to promote safety around those forklifts as far as cleanliness and and operator training and clean habits, and the kinds of things they need to do with Covid?
Brian Feehan, President, Industrial Truck Association :
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, well, first of all, everybody's following the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] and other government agency guidelines that are are required during this Covid time. But at the same time, I think that other companies are going above and beyond that, and introducing, you know, the clean and sanitized programs for their products. You know, it's certainly a challenging environment that they're all living in. But I think as we're learning something new about Covid, it seems almost daily, we're beginning to also learn how to manage it a little bit better. That's why I think you're seeing a lot of the declines that are taking place across the country. And so, introducing the cleanliness programs, the sanitizing programs, and following the guidelines, I think that we're, we're learning, and I think we're becoming much more effective in combating this awful virus.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity :
If someone wanted more information about the Industrial Truck Association and the work that you do, where can they find you? Can you share your website?
Brian Feehan, President, Industrial Truck Association :
Absolutely. The best way to see us is to go to www.indtrk.org. And through that website, our website, there's a variety of information about the organization. But there's also a lot of detailed information on statistics. There's links to some of our partners, and which I'd like to appreciate and thank many of the partners that helped Forklift Safety Day become the success that it is today: The Material Handling Industry, MHI. MHEDA—Material Handling Equipment Distributors Association—as well as the Propane Education & Research Council and numerous other organizations that have been very actively supporting us in this venture.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity :
And again, that website is www.indtrk.org, short for Industrial Truck, indtrk.org. And as Brian mentioned earlier, we do have the entire program—the entire virtual conference of National Forklift Safety Day. It's available on demand. The entire program runs about 90 minutes long, so it's an easy watch. You can find the links to it at DCVelocity.com or at the ITA website. And again, that's indtrk.org. And we hope that you take a look at it. Thank you, Brian, for joining us today, and keep up the good work on promoting safety. Thank you.
Brian Feehan, President, Industrial Truck Association :
Thank you, Dave. I appreciate it.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity :
Now let's turn to some of the other supply chain news from the week. Victoria, you reported this week just how critical IT infrastructure has been to industry companies during the Covid-19 pandemic. And many have found that their IT systems are lacking. Can you tell us more?
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity :
Yes, absolutely, Dave. And this sort of ties into Brian's comments about moving from a physical to a virtual world. Businesses, you know, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, have seen how they've had to make transitions. And an interesting study that came out sort of underscored the vital role that IT is playing when it comes to business continuity planning as a result of the pandemic. An Arizona-based tech firm called Insight Enterprises surveyed 200 IT professionals in the U.S. and Canada. These are professionals working at pretty large firms—1,000 employees, at least—and included supply chain companies. And what they found was that many of them sort of experienced a not-so-smooth transition to adapting to the new climate they had to work in because of the pandemic.
Specifically, only about a quarter of those surveyed said that their companies were able to adapt to business changes from the pandemic with no downtime at all. More than half—56%, I think it was—said they experienced about two weeks of downtime as they adjusted to things like remote working requirements and similar challenges. So, some other things they found were that, I think like 46% said they felt extremely or very prepared to pivot in the new business landscape. And just 40% said they had to develop or refine their business resiliency plans, you know, as they went along. So what the researchers sort of surmise from this and emphasized is that this whole situation that we're all facing really forced companies to, as they put it, "reckon with their technology shortfalls," and as a result, you know, will be kind of more focused on on these issues going forward.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity :
Are the companies finding that their IT issues are a factor in getting people to come back to the workplace as the country slowly reopens?
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity :
Yes, absolutely. That was another important part of the survey. And what they found was that most IT professionals are finding that their companies want to invest in technologies that will sort of make this transition back to work much smoother, particularly focusing on technologies that will help protect employee health. Things like smart personal hygiene devices, you know, connected hand-sanitizer stations, for example. Contactless sensors, infrared thermometers, thermal cameras, those are the kinds of technologies that they see their companies making more investment in going forward. And these are things that, I should say, we've already seen in logistics and warehousing, of course. Ben and I both reported on the different things warehouses and DCs are doing along these lines. But what the study shows is that, you know, we're certainly going to see more of that as companies up and down the supply chain bring employees back into the physical workspace.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity :
Yeah. And again, that's not just standalone systems or thermometers, but connecting into the IT infrastructure so that data can be shared throughout the organization so they can take proper steps.
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity :
Yes, exactly.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity :
Well, I think we're going to see a lot of companies making changes to fix problems that they didn't know until the pandemic came along and revealed those problems to them. Thank you, Victoria.
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity :
You're welcome.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity :
We also want to remind you of our continuing Covid-19 coverage and our list of resources that are available on DCVelocity.com. So go there to check them out.
And now, turning to Ben, you reported this week on how workers at many of the logistics facilities around the country were holding moments of silence to honor the memory of George Floyd and to support the rallies that are taking place around the country. Can you share more?
Ben Ames, Senior News Editor, DC Velocity :
Yes, Dave. It really seems as if safety is something that's on a lot of people's minds this week. We have workplace safety with the National Forklift Safety Day, and Victoria's research on some of the technology efforts going into the coronavirus pandemic. And this one was also on the safety theme, but we're talking about George Floyd, of course, who was the black man who died just two weeks ago now in Minneapolis over Memorial Day weekend, in a clash with police.
Since that time, there have been vigils or rallies around the country in his memory, and to push the point of having less, less violence in terms of interactions with police. And that kind of theme actually came over into the logistics area, finally, on the ninth, which was Tuesday, this week. That was the date of George Floyd's family's memorial service for him as he was laid to rest. And on that day, we saw a number of ports around the country, particularly on the West Coast, in California, a couple of unions like the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, their workers paused in their work for a nine-minutes break in order to demonstrate for George Floyd's memory and to support some Black Lives Matter issues. And then they went back to work again, it was not a full strike by any means. And that kind of theme was also echoed in some other ports around the country. Some additional unions, like the Teamsters union and the International Longshoremen's Association, had also taken a work pause for the same kind of message.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity :
Are we seeing the impacts of the protests beyond the unions that you mentioned?
Ben Ames, Senior News Editor, DC Velocity :
Well, we did. There was also communications from, if you look at the Port of Los Angeles, which is one of the nation's most powerful ports in terms of imports and exports. There, the port of L.A. Executive Director Gene Seroka had delivered a very powerful message. And he spoke alongside the port police chief there.
And then as well, there was some information from a management consulting firm called BPE Global in San Francisco, that had also made a statement and suggested some various social justice charities that it was contributing money to, so there are really efforts on this across a number of constituencies throughout the logistics sector.
It seems, from my reporting, that that's something that they all sort of have come to agree on. It is improving the interactions between the police and the citizens, in terms of the interventions by police, in terms of improving community relations, interactions, and ensuring accountability so that those sorts of things, it seems that people who have come to agree on some of those points as well as possible ways forward.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity :
We want to let you know, too, to our listeners that next week on the podcast, we'll continue our discussion on the racial issues that exist within the logistics industry. Our guest will be Dr. Terry Esper of Ohio State University, who penned an excellent commentary that we've presented on the DC Velocity and the Supply Chain Quarterly websites that was entitled "Let's talk about race and the danger faced by black delivery drivers." Dr. Esper will share what motivated him to write this important article and the tough conversations that the industry needs to have. So join us next week for that.
Thanks, Ben and Victoria, for sharing highlights of the news this week.
Ben Ames, Senior News Editor, DC Velocity :
Thank you, Dave. It was good to get caught up.
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity :
Yes, thank you.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity :
And again, our thanks to Brian Feehan from the Industrial Truck Association for being our guest today. If you'd like more information on the stories we discussed today on Logistics Matters, be sure to check out DCVelocity.com for details. And also if you'd like to register to watch National Forklift Safety Day, go to DCVelocity.com as well.
We also encourage you to subscribe to Logistics Matters on Apple, Google, and other popular podcast platforms and at your App Store. Just search for "Logistics Matters" to find us. Our new episodes are uploaded each Friday.
And a reminder that Logistics Matters is sponsored by Fortna. Fortna partners with the world's top brands to transform distribution operations into competitive advantage. Expertise includes distribution strategy, DC operations, micro-fulfillment, automation, and intelligent softwar. Distribution solutions designed today for tomorrow's challenges. Learn more about the distribution experts at Fortna.com.
We'll be back again next Friday with another episode of Logistics Matters. And again, our guest then will be Dr. Terry Esper of Ohio State, when we talk about the issues of race within the logistics industry. Be sure to join us. Until then, please stay safe and have a great week.
