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How’s everyone doing this week? Marty T Hawkins here with Warehouse and Operations as a Career where we talk about everything Operations, Warehousing and Transportation! Last week we talked a little about the importance of a few tools that are important to our safety and success. Today I thought we’d expand along the same line and discuss a few more tools we see every day but may not use as we need too or items, we should be paying more attention to. A few of them we may not even understand fully. That being said a question we were asked last month comes to mind. That belly switch on the end rider, you know the red bar switch at the end of the steering handle on our walkie and platform rider pallet jacks. A very important safety feature indeed. But it is not a brake and not a reverse switch. A listener asked what it was really for. He’d been told to never use it as a break, but I guess no one explained what its real purpose was for. I’ve only needed it once in my career, but I was sure glad it functioned as designed that day. So, it’s there for when we are in front of the machine walking with it and we get caught between it and a solid force, like a rack or wall. When the machine is being powered forward and we are backed up into something the button will press upon us, like in our belly region and immediately reverse. Even if the throttle handle is rolled forward the machine will reverse instantly. One time I was walking my jack, I was standing to the side, but the control bar was turned as I was about to go around an aisle end cap. Another selector bumped my pallet pushing the jack into me. The belly switch was activated by my hip when the handle was pushed into me. It backed up like twice before I had let go of the handle. And that’s exactly what it was designed to do. I’ve seen people use it to back up a bay or so when selecting or staging a pallet up on the docks. That’s not its purpose and I wouldn’t recommend doing that. It’s just as easy to roll back the throttle or thumb bar and we’ll have much more control of our unit. Remember the belly switch overrides our throttle bar so if we are rolling the accelerator bar even the least little bit once we let go of the belly button our unit is coming forward at us again.
Since we’re talking about our rider jacks, how many of us know about and understands the rabbit switch on our grab bars or stable bars? Yes, it’s an additional speed. Not really a gear but it does increase our travel speed. Our maintenance department sets the speed our units can travel. Typically, there are one to five settings on acceleration and the rabbit or I think they call it a High Travel Speed switch setting. The recommended setting on that switch is usually at 80%. How many of us just automatically get on and hold that switch down for every travel? And a really bad habit I see while out in the field is the switch being taped down all the time. Please don’t do that. You, may be an experienced operator and know the machine is going to have all that additional torque when you roll the accelerator bar to full open, but a new boot or a less experienced operator could be and probably will be thrown off the jack. As professionals, equipment operators, remember we carry the responsibility of following all the preferred work methods and rules. I almost certain there’s not an operator’s manual or company rule out there that encourages us to tape down the rabbit buttons on our equipment!
And the Deadman switch on equipment like the standup reach lifts or dock lifts, let’s talk about those real quick. Maybe think of an emergency brake. Well, let me back up a bit. The Deadman brake is a switch we stand on that releases the braking component to our lift and engages the electronic components like pre check diagnostics, steering and the electric motors. In my experience it’s just that, an emergency break. let go of it and the truck can come to a jarring stop. I’ve lost a couple of loads using it. And remember, once we’re not standing on it, we’ll lose electronic control functions on a lot of models. As we’ve all been taught, plugging, or reversing direction with our controls is our preferred braking system and function. I have had to use the Deadman switch before, more than I wanted too in my career, but I feel it should be used as just that, an emergency brake. A lot of equipment utilizes a Deadman type switch. Lawnmowers, outboard motors, jet skis. A lot of production machines a’ll have them so the machine stops should we let go of a button or switch. With forklifts it’s so important, and I want to stress this, that we understand its braking system and functions. We need to know our stopping distances, the faster we’re going to more distance we’ll need to plug or stop the equipment. Even when using the Deadman switch, the faster we’re going to more distance it’ll need to stop. I’m sure we’ve all heard the expression Low and Slow when we’re being taught to use the lift. Speed and forklifts just don’t go together. There’s no forklift races that I’ve ever heard of!
Oh, and here’s one that’s definitely not given the attention it should be. Our equipment Data Plates. I’ve heard them referred to as Capacity plates, Data tags, Specification Plates and Rating Plates and Name Plates. When we were being trained and certified as an operator, we learned that every powered industrial truck that we operate must have one attached and it had to be clean and legible at all times. It should be a part of your pre-trip inspection at the beginning of every shift. There’s so much information on there. Things like Make and Model, Origin or where it was made, its power source and tire types and sizes. It’ll give us lift capacity and center of gravity specs, battery sizes and weights and total weight of the truck. If the truck has had any attachments added to it, those specs will be on them along with new totals as they pertain to the equipment. The important things I check for every time I’m getting on a lift or jack is the capacity of the vehicle and the battery size and weight. I always check to see that the right battery is in the unit. If a smaller battery is installed the truck is not going to handle correctly and it could turn over with me. Think about the center of gravity and weight distribution being off. Not to mention a smaller battery moving around or sliding back and forth within the compartment. No goods going to come of that I assure you. If you’re not checking those Data Plates presently please add it to your daily regime. You’ve been taught its importance and it’s our responsibility as operators, right?
I think we have time for one more, how about the strobe lighting on our lifts. And now we have those blue warning lights. Before we get to those let’s talk about our amber strobes. Some units we have to turn them on manually, I don’t know why, but on most electric trucks its automatic. When the bulb is burned out, report it to maintenance. It’s a little pet peeve of mine, last week I ran across an operator that wasn’t running with it turned on. Ugh I don’t understand. It’s our responsibility to take advantage of everything at our disposal to protect ourselves, other equipment operators and the pedestrians running around the warehouse. Have you seen the new blue LED spotlights for forklifts? Basically, you mount it on the lift and it shines a blue circle out in front of or behind the lift so people coming out of an aisle or front dock area knows a lift is about to be occupying that space. There not expensive at all, especially for the safety function they serve. Let your supervisor or manager know about them. Who knows maybe it’ll be something we could get noticed for, and that’s always a good thing!
So, there’s a few more things we should give a second thought to every day. Our tasks can be dangerous, but safeguards are in place. Procedures and processes have been explained to us, we’ve been trained, everything we’ve mentioned these last two weeks are our responsibility to know and to be using. If you don’t understand something, just ask. I assure you that your management team wants you to be competent and comfortable with your tasks! If you have any other thoughts about our safety tools, please email them to us , Host@warehouseandoperationsasacareeer.com and bring them up on our Facebook and Twitter feeds using @whseandops or maybe send us a picture on Instagram to WAOCpodcast.
Until next week, be safe, properly use all the safety tools at our disposal, and lets all make it home to our loved ones!