Aftermarket Solutions For Forklift Safety

As a busy forklift fleet manager, you probably haven’t had the chance to determine all the aftermarket items now available that will ensure safer forklift operation. Some are high tech while others are low tech. Still, they provide you with options on upgrading your forklift fleet to enhance protection.

Safety Lights

Periodically, we at forkliftaccessories.com have featured forklift aftermarket products that use lights to attract attention to moving lifts. These can be ideal products to prevent or at least minimize forklift accidents that involve pedestrians. These items go on to a lift and project a light onto the floor. We have discussed a number of these products that could prove helpful in your warehouse safety programs.

Harnesses

If you use material handling vehicles that provide a platform for pickers to be elevated to top shelves of product storage areas, then you may want to consider harnesses that will prevent accidents due to falling.

If you use harnesses, then you may not be aware that some models may offer too much pressure to the femoral arteries causing blood clots and/or unconsciousness.

One company called Warehouse design offers harnesses that features advanced technology that eliminates too much pressure that could lead to artery injuries. Their harnesses provide more evenly distribution of pressure during a fall. This harness is 99 percent metal free and has a more ergonomic design that helps to reduce fatigue while wearing it. Moreover, the harnesses are highly visible. No matter how high up the picker is one can see that he has a harness secured to him.

Access To Lifts

One important inclusion to a safety program is to prevent unauthorized drivers from utilizing forklifts they have not been trained to use. An aftermarket accessory that helps to limit forklift use to authorized personnel is a control box that prevents access to a lift unless the proper code is tapped in to the keypad.

A company called Start-Manager is offering key-code boxes that can be connected to forklifts that assure that only an employee who knows the code or has a proximity card can gain access to operate a forklift.

The product also has a feature that assures that an OSHA requirement to examine forklifts daily will be done. The Start-Manager system can disable any unchecked equipment. It also features wireless reporting that collects drivers’ safety reports and accesses them at a push of a button. Secure data is communicated via Wi-Fi to servers that store the information.

Monitoring The Environment

There are a number of gadgets called passive safety controls that attach to forklifts and alert personnel of possible risks involving lifts. Many of these products do the job, but are not selective when doing it.

A company called Seen Safety is offering selective detection device called IRIS 860 LIDAR that triggers an alarm only when a particular risk is detected and ignores everything else. This assures that alarms are less frequent yet highly relevant making it certain that it will be noticed and heeded. The device includes a smart camera clip-on module that will automatically upload information including time of occurrence, date stamp, a still image, detection position and distance, the lift’s and sensor ID to the Cloud.

Another company called Intella recently partnered with CyPag, an Italian firm, to be the sole American distributor of Safe&Stop and Safe&Alert. The products are forklift radar systems that detect objects and then slow down the forklift to prevent collisions.

Safe&Alert includes a sensor that is placed on the rear of the lift and detects obstacles. Safe&Stop includes the same sensor, but also includes a feature that automatically reduces the speed of the vehicle, reducing the risk of collision.

Another Company called Forklift Safety Solutions, headquartered in Staffordshire, the UK is distributing the SIS Safe & Stop System. The device is designed for counterbalance trucks and is a reversing and maneuver aid and active system that automatically slows down and stops forklifts, thus preventing collisions with people, stock, or structures. The system does not require the use of tags and uses ultrasonic technology.

Tire Improvements

Camso, a Canadian company that manufactures tires for off road use, has developed non-marking tires for forklifts. These tires don’t use carbon black, so they don’t create static electricity that could build-up in a forklift and cause safety hazards due to uncontrolled discharges.

These are just a few new aftermarket forklift accessories products that ensure more safety during operation.

(Source: forkliftaction.com)