National Forklift Safety Day 2021 Chair Michael G. Field is an engineer through and through. The
president and CEO holds degrees in mechanical and manufacturing engineering, and previously served as Raymond’s vice president of engineering and president of operations and engineering. He holds a Professional Engineering license in New York state and has been granted 35 patents.
Field uses his deep knowledge of engineering technology to give back to education and industry. He serves his alma mater, Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), as a member of its President’s Roundtable. He received RIT’s Kate Gleason College of Engineering Distinguished Alumnus Award for 2018–2019 and is a member of the college’s Dean’s Advisory Council. He also is chairman and director on the board of the New York Battery and Energy Storage Technology Consortium Inc. (NY-BEST), and a board member of the New York State Southern Tier Regional Economic Development Council. And he’s a member of parent company Toyota Material Handling North America’s executive team and a board member of the Industrial Truck Association (ITA).
DC Velocity recently spoke with Field about his background and his priorities for this year’s National Forklift Safety Day.
Q: How do you view your responsibilities at The Raymond Corp.?
A: I’m fortunate that my current role as president and CEO allows me to utilize both my engineering and business background. In these unprecedented times brought on by the pandemic, we are challenged to help our customers in a rapidly growing, e-commerce–driven economy. More than ever, we are leveraging our innovation, quality, and service brand principles, as well as understanding how we as a corporation can help customers. It’s my job to lead the company in a way that encourages our employees to understand the basis of our customers’ challenges and come up with innovative solutions.
Q: How did you get into material handling in the first place?
A: I grew up on an apple farm and learned to move pallets of fruit at about the same time I learned to ride a bike. I am also a proud graduate of Rochester Institute of Technology, where I earned my Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering. Subsequently, I earned a Master of Science degree in manufacturing engineering and an MBA with a concentration in international operations from Boston University. So, you can say I’ve been interested in material handling, manufacturing, and engineering from the get go!
Q: Is there anything you find exceptionally interesting about the industrial truck industry?
A: I’m extremely interested in the technology advances being made in our industry. Over the past 10 years, e-commerce pressures to ship products faster have increased the need for companies to optimize efficiency. Many companies are looking toward automation to help them achieve that. Converting from a manual to a semi-autonomous and then to a fully automated warehouse requires many complex steps. While automation is certainly important to increasing efficiencies, it is not a substitute for defining and optimizing a process. Without continuous-improvement tools, warehouses that apply automation to existing inefficient processes only create unnecessary waste.
I believe that optimizing facilities and technologies will take warehouse productivity deeper into the 21st century, and that innovative technologies and intralogistics solutions will empower the workforce of the future to meet customer demands. At the end of the day, a forklift operator’s role and responsibilities will evolve; it will be about enabling people to do more meaningful and productive work.
Additionally, I’m passionate about exploring energy solutions and integrating them into material handling equipment to increase run time, lower costs, and improve asset life-cycle cost and longevity.
Q: How will your professional background as an engineer help you contribute to ITA’s efforts to promote forklift safety?
A: As an engineer, I’ve always been curious and inquisitive by nature, wanting to investigate and apply innovative solutions and technologies. For example, I believe we can advance forklift operators’ driving habits by enabling new training delivery approaches like e-learning, and by using digital media to get the message out and raise awareness about the importance of adhering to proper protocols.
Q: What are your personal priorities as National Forklift Safety Day chair?
A: One is helping forklift fleet managers recognize that using advanced technology solutions to connect their people and equipment can guide decisions about what process and operational improvements are best for their operation, as well as accelerate the learning curve to implement those improvements.
Another, related priority is discussing the benefits of connected technologies. Technology-enabled solutions that are able to be layered with other solutions can assist operators by providing full visibility into a facility, enabling better training, and ultimately helping manage the movement of materials and assets throughout an operation.
Q: This year marks the eighth annual National Forklift Safety Day. We’re still in the midst of the pandemic, which has greatly impacted forklift users’ operations and personnel. Will those concerns help shape this year’s agenda?
A: Yes, they will. The supply chain experienced a significant increase in demand for critical items, especially among essential businesses and e-commerce–driven businesses, as consumers have been filling their digital shopping carts with everything from groceries to medicine—while also expecting faster delivery at a lower cost.
The past year in particular presented challenges to businesses around the globe, and each of these challenges impacted every one of us. These challenges also provided an opportunity to enhance training and security protocols, including introducing PPE, implementing enhanced cleaning regimens, and continuously evaluating operator protocols with our employees’ health and well-being in mind.
Q: What’s the main message you would like **{DC Velocity’}s readers to take away from National Forklift Safety Day?
A: In the most successful operations, supporting the well-being of a company’s employees means keeping attention on training year-round. Robust operator training should go beyond National Forklift Safety Day, continuously improving operational efficiency and profitability in manufacturing plants and warehouses by training—and retraining.
Creating a culture of safety is an ongoing process. It takes commitment to continuous improvement and a willingness to train and retrain forklift operators and pedestrians alike.
