Warehouses face a tough outlook. By 2030, e-commerce will account for 30% of global retail sales — up from 20% just 10 years prior — and 60% of the world’s population will live in urban areas. To serve that growth, warehouse space will need to expand from 25 billion square feet to 30 billion by 2025.
But all that additional space requires more staff. Warehouses are already plagued by high employee turnover, which in recent years has hovered around 40% annually in the U.S. The challenge of finding and retaining workers grows more intense as warehouses stare down a global workforce shortage that’s expected to reach 85 million people by 2030.
As a result, warehouses sometimes have to rely on inexperienced operators, which can exacerbate the risk of safety incidents and threats to productivity. Each year, there are over 7,300 forklift safety accidents. To cope, operations need solutions to help promote safe practices and maximize operator performance, making technology imperative for operational success. Here are some examples:
Advanced operator assist technology
Used as a complement to proper training, operator assist technologies can help reinforce lift truck safety initiatives that allow businesses to maximize operator productivity and equipment uptime. The award-winning Yale Reliant™ solution helps increase situational awareness and reinforce operating best practices by automatically adjusting lift truck performance based on real-time information about equipment stability and the operating environment.
Other operator assist solutions
Tools in this broad category can provide varying levels of support. For one, stability control systems monitor input from the lift truck, and when they detect that the truck is exceeding certain designated stability thresholds, they can provide alerts and apply automatic interventions to help reduce the likelihood of forward and sideways tipovers. Other tools, like truck lights and audible alarms, can help increase awareness and reduce risk for operators and pedestrians.
Training
Facilities looking to enrich their training portfolio may want to consider virtual reality simulators. Though not a substitute for OSHA-mandated hands-on training, lift truck simulators can help operators learn accurate equipment responses in response to their inputs. Operators also receive automated, real-time feedback on their performance while working in an immersive and realistic 360° learning environment.
Automation
Operations can put automated lift trucks to work to handle a range of horizontal transportation and vertical storage tasks, freeing up workers and reducing the risk of damage to equipment, inventory, and warehouse infrastructure. Pilots and prototypes won’t do, so it’s important to use providers with proven technology and expertise as well as a robust service network to provide comprehensive, local support.
Telemetry
Telemetry systems like Yale Vision can allow operations to control equipment access and confirm completion of pre-shift checklists. They can also provide alerts and fault codes related to hazardous driving behaviors, such as excessive speed or impacts, allowing organizations to isolate and work on remediating problem areas. Telemetry can even restrict equipment access so that only operators with proper training certification get access.
Interested in more warehouse safety content? For expert input on the OSHA warehouse safety emphasis program, lift truck operator assist technology, and more, visit www.yale.com/on-demand/.
Contributed by Yale Lift Truck Technologies
