National Forklift Safety Day 2017 fulfills its educational mission
Speakers from government, industry, and a staffing and recruitment firm focused on opportunities to improve lift truck safety at the fourth annual Industrial Truck Association event.
Contributing Editor Toby Gooley is a writer and editor specializing in supply chain, logistics, and material handling, and a lecturer at MIT's Center for Transportation & Logistics. She previously was Senior Editor at DC VELOCITY and Editor of DCV's sister publication, CSCMP's Supply Chain Quarterly. Prior to joining AGiLE Business Media in 2007, she spent 20 years at Logistics Management magazine as Managing Editor and Senior Editor covering international trade and transportation. Prior to that she was an export traffic manager for 10 years. She holds a B.A. in Asian Studies from Cornell University.
On June 13, members of the Industrial Truck Association (ITA), which represents lift truck manufacturers and suppliers of associated parts and accessories, sponsored the fourth annual National Forklift Safety Day in Washington, D.C. The event provides an opportunity for the industry to educate customers, policymakers, and government officials about the safe use of forklifts and the importance of proper operator training.
The program featured speakers on a range of safety-related topics. Among the highlights:
Brett Wood, president and CEO, Toyota Material Handling North America and ITA chairman, and Kevin Krakora, vice president, design, quality, and product support for Mitsubishi Caterpillar Forklift America and ITA National Forklift Safety Day task force chairman, discussed the genesis and mission of National Forklift Safety Day, the importance of forklift safety for end users, and some of the ways industrial truck manufacturers and associated companies are working to promote forklift safety.
Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.), a member of the House Education and Workforce Committee, spoke about congressional efforts to reduce or eliminate regulations that he said place constraints on businesses. He also said his committee hoped to pass a bill that would reduce red tape and direct more federal funding for student scholarships and loans for students who want training in such trades as as manufacturing and equipment maintenance and repair.
Patrick Kapust, deputy director, Directorate of Enforcement Programs for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), discussed OSHA's policies on temporary workers. "Both the host company and the staffing agency have shared responsibility for protecting the safety and health of temporary workers" under current law, he said. The question employers should ask themselves, he said, is, "Who is in the best position to correct a hazard?" Kapust also noted that the Trump administration has not yet filled some key positions at OSHA. Career employees are filling in and existing initiatives are "moving forward," but those initiatives cannot be finalized until top executives are in place to make policy decisions, he said.
Tony Smith, director of safety outreach at the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc., offered practical tips for improving industrial truck safety. When supervisors push too hard on productivity, operators may respond by cutting corners when it comes to safety, he said. To prevent that, he suggested better training for supervisors, with a stress on understanding the potential consequences of their demands on operators. Smith also recommended that companies "get safety managers in the seat and make sure they know how to safely operate the equipment themselves." He suggested working closely with the best, most respected forklift operator in the DC to get the safety message out to the rest of the operators.
Scott Bicksler, lead safety manager for the recruiting and staffing company Aerotek, identified safety mistakes employers make when working with temporary employees. For example, warehouse and DC supervisors sometimes require temporary hires to operate forklifts, even though the employer did not specify that lift truck operation would be part of the job. There's also evidence that injuries to temporary employees are underreported, and that some employers don't track and document temporary workers' on-site training, he said. Bicksler stressed the need for temporary staffing contracts to describe each position's actual responsibilities, and said any contract for temporary staffing should specify who has responsibility for safety and equipment training, tracking, and documentation; OSHA reporting; and medical supervision and record-keeping. Bicksler also urged employers and supervisors to become fully familiar with OSHA's Temporary Worker Initiative, which clarifies staffing agencies' and employers' responsibilities.
Following the presentations, a number of attendees headed to Capitol Hill for meetings with representatives, senators, and congressional staffers on forklift safety and international trade issues. ITA said it hopes National Forklift Safety Day will provide greater awareness of safe practices as well as encourage safer behavior in warehouses, distribution centers, manufacturing plants, and other environments where forklifts are in use.
The preceding day, ITA released "Lifting America: The Economic Impact of Industrial Truck Manufacturers, Distributors and Dealers," the first-ever report on the industrial truck manufacturing industry's impact on the U.S. economy. The report, prepared by Oxford Economics, estimates that the industrial truck industry's total contribution to the U.S. economy in 2015 was $25.7 billion. Read a summary of the report's findings.
Supply chain planning (SCP) leaders working on transformation efforts are focused on two major high-impact technology trends, including composite AI and supply chain data governance, according to a study from Gartner, Inc.
"SCP leaders are in the process of developing transformation roadmaps that will prioritize delivering on advanced decision intelligence and automated decision making," Eva Dawkins, Director Analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice, said in a release. "Composite AI, which is the combined application of different AI techniques to improve learning efficiency, will drive the optimization and automation of many planning activities at scale, while supply chain data governance is the foundational key for digital transformation.”
Their pursuit of those roadmaps is often complicated by frequent disruptions and the rapid pace of technological innovation. But Gartner says those leaders can accelerate the realized value of technology investments by facilitating a shift from IT-led to business-led digital leadership, with SCP leaders taking ownership of multidisciplinary teams to advance business operations, channels and products.
“A sound data governance strategy supports advanced technologies, such as composite AI, while also facilitating collaboration throughout the supply chain technology ecosystem,” said Dawkins. “Without attention to data governance, SCP leaders will likely struggle to achieve their expected ROI on key technology investments.”
The U.S. manufacturing sector has become an engine of new job creation over the past four years, thanks to a combination of federal incentives and mega-trends like nearshoring and the clean energy boom, according to the industrial real estate firm Savills.
While those manufacturing announcements have softened slightly from their 2022 high point, they remain historically elevated. And the sector’s growth outlook remains strong, regardless of the results of the November U.S. presidential election, the company said in its September “Savills Manufacturing Report.”
From 2021 to 2024, over 995,000 new U.S. manufacturing jobs were announced, with two thirds in advanced sectors like electric vehicles (EVs) and batteries, semiconductors, clean energy, and biomanufacturing. After peaking at 350,000 news jobs in 2022, the growth pace has slowed, with 2024 expected to see just over half that number.
But the ingredients are in place to sustain the hot temperature of American manufacturing expansion in 2025 and beyond, the company said. According to Savills, that’s because the U.S. manufacturing revival is fueled by $910 billion in federal incentives—including the Inflation Reduction Act, CHIPS and Science Act, and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act—much of which has not yet been spent. Domestic production is also expected to be boosted by new tariffs, including a planned rise in semiconductor tariffs to 50% in 2025 and an increase in tariffs on Chinese EVs from 25% to 100%.
Certain geographical regions will see greater manufacturing growth than others, since just eight states account for 47% of new manufacturing jobs and over 6.3 billion square feet of industrial space, with 197 million more square feet under development. They are: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Tennessee.
Across the border, Mexico’s manufacturing sector has also seen “revolutionary” growth driven by nearshoring strategies targeting U.S. markets and offering lower-cost labor, with a workforce that is now even cheaper than in China. Over the past four years, that country has launched 27 new plants, each creating over 500 jobs. Unlike the U.S. focus on tech manufacturing, Mexico focuses on traditional sectors such as automative parts, appliances, and consumer goods.
Looking at the future, the U.S. manufacturing sector’s growth outlook remains strong, regardless of the results of November’s presidential election, Savills said. That’s because both candidates favor protectionist trade policies, and since significant change to federal incentives would require a single party to control both the legislative and executive branches. Rather than relying on changes in political leadership, future growth of U.S. manufacturing now hinges on finding affordable, reliable power amid increasing competition between manufacturing sites and data centers, Savills said.
The British logistics robot vendor Dexory this week said it has raised $80 million in venture funding to support an expansion of its artificial intelligence (AI) powered features, grow its global team, and accelerate the deployment of its autonomous robots.
A “significant focus” continues to be on expanding across the U.S. market, where Dexory is live with customers in seven states and last month opened a U.S. headquarters in Nashville. The Series B will also enhance development and production facilities at its UK headquarters, the firm said.
The “series B” funding round was led by DTCP, with participation from Latitude Ventures, Wave-X and Bootstrap Europe, along with existing investors Atomico, Lakestar, Capnamic, and several angels from the logistics industry. With the close of the round, Dexory has now raised $120 million over the past three years.
Dexory says its product, DexoryView, provides real-time visibility across warehouses of any size through its autonomous mobile robots and AI. The rolling bots use sensor and image data and continuous data collection to perform rapid warehouse scans and create digital twins of warehouse spaces, allowing for optimized performance and future scenario simulations.
Originally announced in September, the move will allow Deutsche Bahn to “fully focus on restructuring the rail infrastructure in Germany and providing climate-friendly passenger and freight transport operations in Germany and Europe,” Werner Gatzer, Chairman of the DB Supervisory Board, said in a release.
For its purchase price, DSV gains an organization with around 72,700 employees at over 1,850 locations. The new owner says it plans to investment around one billion euros in coming years to promote additional growth in German operations. Together, DSV and Schenker will have a combined workforce of approximately 147,000 employees in more than 90 countries, earning pro forma revenue of approximately $43.3 billion (based on 2023 numbers), DSV said.
After removing that unit, Deutsche Bahn retains its core business called the “Systemverbund Bahn,” which includes passenger transport activities in Germany, rail freight activities, operational service units, and railroad infrastructure companies. The DB Group, headquartered in Berlin, employs around 340,000 people.
“We have set clear goals to structurally modernize Deutsche Bahn in the areas of infrastructure, operations and profitability and focus on the core business. The proceeds from the sale will significantly reduce DB’s debt and thus make an important contribution to the financial stability of the DB Group. At the same time, DB Schenker will gain a strong strategic owner in DSV,” Deutsche Bahn CEO Richard Lutz said in a release.
Transportation industry veteran Anne Reinke will become president & CEO of trade group the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) at the end of the year, stepping into the position from her previous post leading third party logistics (3PL) trade group the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), both organizations said today.
Meanwhile, TIA today announced that insider Christopher Burroughs would fill Reinke’s shoes as president & CEO. Burroughs has been with TIA for 13 years, most recently as its vice president of Government Affairs for the past six years, during which time he oversaw all legislative and regulatory efforts before Congress and the federal agencies.
Before her four years leading TIA, Reinke spent two years as Deputy Assistant Secretary with the U.S. Department of Transportation and 16 years with CSX Corporation.