Manufacturing News

Automation software to improve forklift safety

WHILE fewer people are now being killed as a result of forklift incidents, injuries related to forklift use are on-the-rise.

In Victoria, an average of 250 people are seriously injured by forklifts each year, according to WorkSafe Victoria. These injuries are often cause by workers being hit by the forklift or by the loads carried by a forklift, and can include broken bones, hospitalisation and potential fatalities.

WorkSafe Victoria’s acting manager for manufacturing & logistics strategy, Carolyn Kennedy, says the potential for forklifts to cause serious injuries and sometimes death is often sig nificantly underestimated.

“They are heavy, difficult to manoeuvre, and take consider able distance to come to a stop, even from walking pace,” she told Manufacturers’ Monthly.

There has been a shift to more rigorous safety standards of late that have provided a less injurious environment where forklifts are used.

However, tighter safety regula tions that look to travelling speeds and type of load being carried have left manufacturers questioning productivity.

Adapt A Lift technology prod ucts manager, Nathan McKenzie, said speed regulations have helped to reduce workplace injuries, however have lead many manufactures to believe that safe speed reduces worker as well as factory productivity.

“Manufactures need to get over the preconception that slow er travelling forklifts reduce pro ductivity,” said McKenzie.

“Moving at a slower pace doesn’t reduce productively in the warehouse — it only increases safety, which ensures smooth continuation of the production process.”

Though Australian companies have moved to adopt more sophisticated operating process es aimed at reducing the risks associated with forklifts, manu facturers are still faced with another issue — that many fork lift-related injuries are the cause of human-associated error.

According to Industrial Conveying managing director, Don Erskine, operating a forklift poses a number of risks, including those associated with blind spots.

“As forklifts do a lot of their travelling in reverse, the driver is never completely facing the direction of travel when in this mode. Field-of-vision issues can pose a danger to other employ ees who are working on the same warehouse floor,” Erskine said.

Erskine states the best form of remedy for Australian companies to reduce the number of acci dents involving forklifts, arguably is to remove forklift fleets altogether and replace them with an automated version. The solution is said to ensure drivers and pedestrians will not be injured.

“Technologies such as the Automated Warehouse Trucks (AWTs) have been developed pri marily to achieve greater speed and work efficiency while improving safety levels for staff,” Erskine said.

“Using laser guiding or a spot system overseen by a software platform, AWTs put control of warehouse movements into the hands of management rather than floor staff or the forklift operator, ensuring stock han dling in the warehouse is always proactive rather than reactive.”

The system reportedly inte grates seamlessly with automat ed dock technologies which allow companies to have fully-automat ed handling from shelf to truck. The concept behind its develop ment is to move people away from the activity zone to reduce potential for injury.

However, the question largely remains whether the introduc tion of such technology in the warehouse will reduce the fork lift-related injuries and deaths.

Erskine says that the AWT sys tem is more reliable than human driver operation. But whether companies will move to com pletely automate their forklift operations, replacing drivers with driver operation software, remains uncertain.

“There will always be a strong call for forklifts purely because of the diverse range of applica tions which see them in use,” Erskine said.

“Naturally, if forklifts disap pear altogether to be replaced by AWTs in the future, it should in theory make the instance of injury almost non-existent. But in reality, we expect forklifts to always be part of the landscape whereas AWTs are emerging as the technology of choice for large capacity, high-rate move ment of palletised goods.”

WorkSafe Victoria’s Kennedy shares the same view.

“Automated technologies work where there is a known or set work path, for example on a production line, where they are guided using infrared or radar technologies,” Kennedy said.

“Where a process can be established that facilitates work on a set path or track, automated technologies may be a useful device. However, they will not replace forklifts in all circumstances, so there remains the need to be vigilant in regard to separation of people and forklifts.”

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