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Warehouse and Operations as a Career, I’m Marty and I appreciate you stopping in again today. As I was sitting down to record today, I noticed we’re on the 150th episode of WAOC, 150 weeks of doing the program. That caught my attention that we’re in week 32 of 2019, we only have 20 more weeks to wrap up our goals for the year! I’m pretty much on track myself, how’s yours coming along? Now’s the time to check’em out, we’ve still got time to make things happen, if we’re working from our plan, there’s still plenty of time to adjust as needed! Speaking of working a plan, I wanted to share a listener’s situation with the group, I’m certain we can come up with some suggestions that’ll help her out. She’s working in a smaller distribution warehouse, I think she said there carrying around 890 items or SKU’s, have 2 receivers that helps out with the put away process and sometimes will run pallets off of the dock as well. They have 1 sit-down forklift, 2 standup lifts, 1 reach lift and as for pallet jacks she said there’s 2 single rider jacks and 3 doubles. She said they’re not using any kind of attachments like clamps or slip sheets, just ordinary equipment, she didn’t know the model numbers, but everything sounded like they were fairly new, she thought about 6 or 7 years old. From what she described all the pallet jacks were end controlled platform riders and the sit-down lift was electric. It all sounded like lighter weight equipment. She’s been working there as an assembler and utility person for about 2 years and has some inside knowledge that one of the receivers will be leaving in about 9 months, he’ll be going back to school. One of her goals is to be promoted to that receiving position! Her opportunity is that there is no equipment trainer at her company. The company has a 3rd party come out that instructs the 29cfr1910.178 or Powered Industrial Training as needed, she’s been given the class so she can get in some practice, and her boss is good about either watching her or having someone take her to the back and observe her while she drives around but no one is really sharing any advice or pointers. She’s just driving forward and backwards or driving around pallets. She doesn’t feel she’s getting any better and she’s definitely not feeling comfortable on any of them yet. She wanted to ask if we had any pointers or tricks when it came to training and learning to operate any of that type of equipment. I suggested she maybe post something to one of our feeds on Facebook or Twitter using that little @whseandops or even post in the warehouse equipment operators community group on Facebook and I’d bet several of our listeners would be glad to share some thoughts! After all, there the pro’s!
So, I thought today we’d talk a bit about a few of the training techniques I see used out in the field and what I try and impress on the candidates I work with. Lets just start from scratch, that’ll include all the equipment she’s mentioned earlier. First off before anyone starts working with or even touches a piece of powered industrial equipment they need to be trained on its operation and authorized to be on it. I was glad to hear that her company had an instructor that came out and taught everyone about being safe on the units and ran them through the 29cfr1910.178 standard. So, as we would have learned from that training we should perform a pre-trip on any equipment or machine that we’re going to operate or be responsible for right? With all her equipment being electric we should ask someone about the charging procedure. We’ll need to know the proper disconnect or unplugging and the connecting or plugging up the equipment procedures as well as when we should charge the equipment. Now not all facilities may require an actual printed form be filled out to document our pre-trip. Some smaller organizations may just work off a report it to maintenance as needed program but I strongly suggest that we document our pre-trips. My thoughts are do one and turn it in to someone anyway. Who knows maybe you’ll aid in setting up a new procedure and getting noticed in a positive way from your management team! Turning in a pre-trip isn’t going to ever get you in trouble. Everyone is trained to do it!
Ok, I personally think, if you have the opportunity, to train on a single jack, and that you learn on that. A single pallet rider jack is quick, turns kind of jerky due to the short wheelbase, and you’re going to learn to move slower, react quicker and to give the pallet jack the respect it deserves. Yes, it’s going to wear you out at first. At first 20 minutes is going to wear you out. When mounting the platform, the placement of our feet is critical. We need to keep both feet on the platform at all times but we should learn to reposition them as needed, they can help take stress and strain off of our rotator cup and we need to use our body to help make our turns, repositioning our stance to kind of be one with the jack. I use my dominate hand or arm to control or operate the end control steering bar. Its very important that we have strength in our other hand and arm though to hold on to the unit’s stationary bar at all times. You’ll be surprised how much you will use that arm in positioning your movements while running through the aisles. Never just hold onto the steering bar or handle, always us both hands when operating a rider jack. There’s nothing special about operating a rider jack, it’s honestly all about being safe at all times. You have to be comfortable riding on it, practice is what will make you comfortable and experience is what will make you good at it. Personally, I think the best way to train is to use the ends of the aisles. I kind of preach to always travel with forks trailing. Practice coming out of an aisle, moving over to one side as your approaching the end cap, slowing and stopping, glancing through the racks on both sides confirming no one is coming before honking and carefully proceeding to make your turn. Remember to arch your turn. There could always be pallets placed at the end of the aisles or even parked equipment. Even with our single pallet jack, those turns need to be wide when possible. I always suggest learning with a pallet on the piece of equipment, either empty or a pallet with just 20 or 30 cube on it. Sometimes a little product can make us be more careful, we don’t want to damage anything right. With a pallet on the equipment we’ll learn to gauge our turns better. By coming into and out of aisles we’ll learn to position our bodies, re position our feet as we lean into the handle to make those turns. Its important to train ourselves to keep our feet on the platform at all times. Let me suggest that again, its important that we keep our feet on the platform at all times. You will eventually hurt your self if you don’t. And it won’t be an accident, your feet weren’t on the platform, in the protected area, and that operator error, not an accident. Anyway, once we’re comfortable coming in and out of the aisles lets start running down the aisles, now lets only run at like half speed, we’re still learning, you don’t need to go fast yet. Keep paying attending with our turns, your learning a lot more by making those turns than you think. Your training all kinds of muscles and training our brain with movements. Focusing on entering and exiting aisles is your short cut to learning to operate a rider jack. Once your comfortable with it you’ll start acquiring that experience needed to improve with.
Now when you move on up to the double and triple jacks, treat them the same. Set up your turn before you approach the end caps, turn wide while keeping an eye on the back of your first or second pallets, that’s where your pivot point will be. The placement of the load wheels on your particular jack is going to be important as it relates to that turning radius or pivot point. I always make a couple of turns on a jack I’m unfamiliar with, you can’t always just judge with our eyes on how there going to turn. Again, learning to operate an electric rider jack isn’t difficult, go slow be safe, turn slowly and watch out for others and things on the floor. Last week I heard a trainer that always had her students repeat her golden rule before every class, don’t hit nobody and don’t let nobody hit you”. I love that cheer! Respect the equipment, its abilities and your ability and skill level and you’ll get that experience needed.
In my opinion the same goes for the sit down and the standup lifts. Be sure not to even go near them until you’ve been trained on them, authorized to operate them and a trainer signs off on you. Learn about their fueling or charging and always, always perform a pre-trip on your equipment. These are large pieces of equipment, their heavy and they can do a lot of damage if they get away from you. I always urge newbies to start out slow. Use the same training techniques as we did with the rider jacks. Start out by driving in and out of the aisles, creeping, at a very slow rate of speed. Once your comfortable with turning into and out of an aisle start driving straight down the center of an aisle. Then after your comfortable steering, accelerating and braking, go find a quiet place with no obstacles above you and practice raising, lowering and reaching the forks. Keep the equipment still, just start training your brain on the controls and what they do. When your comfortable with that, pick up a pallet, raise it like 4 inches and practice placing it in a ground slot and picking it back up again. Remember to watch your freight guard and don’t get it caught up on the cross bars. After your comfortable working at ground level, move up to level 2 and do the same thing. Now you may have the skills and awareness to drive up and down an aisle a bit, then pulling down a pallet of freight from the second level and putting it back. Remember, working with a forklift requires that your always familiar with your surroundings. Watch out for people, equipment, cross bars, uprights, in rack sprinkler systems, wood chips and shrink wrap on the floor, a million things. Your forklift safety training will cover all these things, please pay attention. Again, there not difficult to learn but they do have to be learned. They have to be respected at all times. When there not respected, or we work outside of our skill level, well, things will go wrong, seriously wrong.
Most of our larger facilities will have trainers and training programs, which is fantastic. But like in her case, we’ll have to be cautious and learn a little more on our own, we’ll have to get our own experience. Todays thoughts may be some practical guidelines you could follow but always, even in the smaller buildings work and learn with your supervisor’s approval and under their supervision. And even then, only after you’ve gone through your PIT training!
If you’d like to expand on todays topic shoot us an email to host@warehouseandoperationsasacareer.com, or head on over to social media and start a thread there! Until next week, keep learning and be safe doing it!