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.
IF YOU ASK THEM, most forklift operators, fleet managers, and warehouse workers will say that safety is their number-one priority. They’ll probably also say that they continually think about safety while they’re at work. More often than not, though, such assertions are closer to aspiration than reality.
Yet it is possible to develop an environment where every employee and contractor actually does consider safety to be his or her responsibility and does think about it throughout the workday. That describes a “safety culture,” which Don Buckman, Hyster Co.’s environmental health and safety manager, defines as “a set of beliefs, attitudes, and actions consistently adopted by everyone in the organization to make the right decisions that value safety.”
The word “everyone” is key: A successful safety culture requires each individual to value and prioritize safety, regardless of his or her position on the organization chart. “We want every person who comes to work, including not just forklift drivers but also office staff, to have a ‘zero injury mindset,’” says Ed Johannesen, director of manufacturing for UniCarriers Americas (UCA).
It’s neither quick nor easy to ensure that everyone is safety-focused and compliant at all times. Rather, it’s a long-term initiative that requires sustained attention. “Safety culture is something that must be cultivated over time,” says Brian Duffy, director of corporate environmental and manufacturing safety for Crown Equipment Corp. “It’s not something that can be created or forced.”
Though it requires time and effort, there are plenty of reasons why developing a safety culture is worthwhile. In addition to fewer injuries, they include higher productivity, lower costs, reduced product and equipment damage, and better compliance with regulations. Here’s one more: A safety culture encourages co-workers to look out for each other’s well-being. “If we truly are treating each other like family, then we care enough to make sure others don’t put themselves in dangerous positions,” says Toyota Material Handling Brand Ambassador Tom Lego.
The consequences of failing to develop and maintain a safety culture can be dire. In a May 2019 blog post, Thelma Marshall of TotalTrax, a provider of forklift telematics systems, cites the example of a forklift operator who backed over a pedestrian; after numerous surgeries, the accident victim’s leg was amputated, and the resulting lawsuit was settled for $9 million. Such mishaps occur when “workers get complacent with repetitive work and ignore safety measures,” Marshall wrote. Indeed, during the trial, the operator admitted to being careless about basic safety protocols.
As the above example suggests, developing a safety culture among forklift operators and other warehouse and DC personnel requires employees to change both their mindset and their behavior. The baseline for accomplishing that: clear, consistent communication and collaboration across the facility.
10 WAYS TO GET YOUR SAFETY PROGRAM STARTED
The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) “Safe and Sound” initiative helps companies of all sizes improve safety in the workplace. OSHA suggests completing the following steps to provide a foundation for a more comprehensive health and safety program. Many of these steps involve soliciting and incorporating recommendations from workers; for example, during inspections, managers should ask workers to identify any activity, piece of equipment, or material that concerns them. The steps include:
Clear, effective communication by and for everyone—not just forklift operators but pedestrians too—is vital. Even nonverbal communication can lead to big improvements when everyone adopts them. Hyster Co., for example, asks pedestrians to “wait for the wave.” Whether employees or visitors, pedestrians do not proceed until the forklift operator waves to them. This conveys the message that “I see you, I value your safety, and I will wait and wave you on,” Buckman explains.
More broadly, safety communications should be shared through multiple channels—horizontal, vertical, and peer-to-peer. UCA, for example, always starts major meetings with a safety-related topic; this reinforces the idea that safety is the first priority, Johannesen says. Because informal discussions can also be effective, UCA makes sure line supervisors and managers are “fluent in safety” and know how to communicate guidance to their direct reports and others in a facility. Regardless of who is delivering the safety messages, Johannesen adds, they must be aligned and consistent across the organization.
Training, of course, is a fundamental element of safety communication. Facilities with a forklift safety culture typically go above and beyond the minimum safety training requirements set by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). And because a safety culture by definition encompasses everyone in a facility, their programs generally include pedestrians too. Anyone who enters a facility should receive a safety orientation and periodic refresher training on how to be safe in an environment where forklifts are operating, Lego says.
An essential element of any operator-training program is hands-on safety demonstrations and instruction, says Joe Tomkiewicz, director, consumer trades and durable goods for Yale Materials Handling Corp. He also recommends assigning an experienced mentor to work with new employees during training sessions. “This practice helps ensure that important legacy knowledge is passed on to new hires, enabling them to meet demanding performance standards while respecting safety protocols,” he says.
A different approach may be more effective for experienced employees who have been doing things their own way for years. They might be resistant to new expectations associated with a safety-focused culture. For them, Johannesen says, “this is really about implementing and managing change, just like in any other business or industry.”
Strong safety programs also use a variety of methods to deliver training and guide operators to follow best practices. Advancements such as virtual reality-based instruction, which allows operators to practice safe operating techniques using a simulator on a stationary lift truck, and e-learning are effective when used in addition to traditional safety lectures and in-person instruction, says Dave Norton, vice president, customer solutions and support, for The Raymond Corp. Outside the classroom, technologies like warehouse and labor management systems and forklift telematics enhance safety by allowing organizations to connect and communicate directly with an operation’s fleet management, assets, and workforce, he notes. Forklift telematics, for example, use sensors and wireless transmission to direct, track, and measure some of the lift truck’s and the operator’s activities and performance. This capability makes it possible to identify operators who require additional training. On the flip side, reports, alerts, and remote controls can help to reinforce desired behaviors.
COME TOGETHER
The safest facilities are those where employees take to heart their responsibility for each other’s safety. For mutual responsibility to become a way of life, people must take a collaborative approach to fixing problems. When a mistake, an accident, or a near-miss occurs, it’s important that a working group of employees from different levels, not just managers, come together to understand what happened and take corrective measures right away, Lego says. A safety culture will give similar weight to developing a long-term action plan to prevent similar problems from occurring in the future. Information about the incident as well as the short- and long-term solutions should be shared across the organization so people can learn from each other and work with accurate information, not hearsay, he adds.
Among the most important ways co-workers can help each other be safe is to speak up when they see a hazard or unsafe behavior. But most people are reluctant to approach a co-worker—especially someone they may not know well—with what may be perceived as a criticism.
Behavior-based safety programs leverage human psychology to overcome that obstacle and encourage collaboration. These voluntary programs empower employees to speak to each other about risky behavior and provide positive reinforcement when they see safe behavior. A key success factor for this type of program is that employees both understand and are accountable for the consequences of their behavior.
Crown has had an employee-run behavior-based program, called SafeSteps, in place for about 10 years. When they speak with co-workers, the volunteer observers (many of Crown’s warehouse and factory employees currently participate) use positive language to express concerns about people’s safety, Duffy says. This includes discussing the consequences of unsafe actions and their potential impact on co-workers. Peers also recognize and thank each other for what they did right. Observers note on scorecards whether or not their peers performed specified tasks safely and whether the observer gave verbal feedback. Importantly, participants are coached on how to give feedback so that recipients will be receptive to it.
Companies that have adopted these programs say that over time, they lead to safer workplaces and fewer injuries. Behavior-based safety programs offer other benefits as well. Duffy, for one, cites stronger, more positive relationships among peers, while Johannesen, whose company adopted a behavior-based safety program about two years ago, has seen a positive impact on injury rates, product quality, and, in some cases, operating costs. Employees are more engaged too: “In some departments, everyone is thinking and talking about safety now,” he says.
SIGNS OF SUCCESS
No matter how committed to achieving a safety culture a facility may be, there are bound to be some roadblocks along the way. Oftentimes, says Toyota’s Lego, the root cause is an imbalance among the three pillars of industrial performance—safety, quality, and productivity. He uses the analogy of juggling. All three “balls” have to keep moving at the same pace; they are so interrelated that if there’s too much emphasis on one, then one or both of the others will suffer in some way. If the facility puts too much emphasis on hitting productivity targets, for instance, “that sets a poor precedent, because you’re communicating to your people that numbers are more important than their safety,” he says. Importantly, he adds, nothing should ever allow the safety “ball” to be dropped.
If the entire organization—from top management to the shop floor to the back office—is not aligned, then efforts to develop a safety culture will be undermined. When that’s the case, says Johannesen of UniCarriers, it’s important to help the resisters overcome their objections. “If you can see that some people don’t quite buy into [a safety initiative], have early adopters and safety champions work with them in advance or on the side,” he suggests. “If you can get some quick wins and generate some buzz, that can also help to bring those people on board.”
How do you know when you’ve successfully implemented a safety culture among forklift operators, pedestrians, and others in your warehouse or DC? From a quantitative standpoint, effective preventive measures will result in more streamlined processes, fewer work disruptions, and greater productivity, says Raymond’s Norton, adding that continuous monitoring of data generated by telematics and labor management systems will reflect improvements and shed light on new opportunities for optimization.
Duffy of Crown Equipment points to “leading indicators” that suggest whether a safety culture has not only been achieved but is also likely to continue. In a 2019 National Forklift Safety Day presentation, he characterized the development of a safety culture as a “journey.” In the early stages, employees believe safety and plant or DC managers are responsible for safety, and the focus is on compliance and injury investigations. Later, when all employees consider themselves to be responsible for safety and push each other to improve, that’s an indicator that safety has become part of the company’s culture and that it will continue over the long term. Ultimately, Duffy says, “the core of the program is worker engagement and ownership, not just ‘participation.’ You have to get to a higher level than that.”
Autonomous mobile robot (AMR) manufacturer Seegrid Corp. is breaking up with Raymond Corp. (a division of Toyota), serving 90-day notice today that it will terminate its product and distribution agreements with the forklift vendor.
“This move will allow us to sell and service the full Seegrid-branded product line across all market segments rather than serving a large portion of the market through Raymond,” Joe Pajer, CEO of Seegrid, said in a release. “We are seeing more customers desire a direct relationship with Seegrid as we roll out our new lift truck products and release innovative technology enhancements across our product line.”
Raymond did not respond to a request for comment on the announcement.
Seegrid’s product catalog includes AMR solutions for palletized material handling, such as the Lift CR1, Lift RS1, and Tow Tractor S7 models. The company’s shift in go-to-market strategy follows a year marked by record-breaking end-user sales, with particularly high demand for our advanced autonomous lift truck solutions, he said.
“We appreciate Raymond’s partnership in our earlier years,” Pajer said. "At the same time, we have carefully studied our business relationship with Raymond and concluded that we are in a better position to deliver the benefits of our innovative technology to all customers if we do so directly and with Seegrid-branded products only. We are very excited to make our full product line available to all customers.”
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Aptean said the move will add new capabilities to its warehouse management and supply chain management offerings for manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, retailers, and 3PLs. Aptean currently provides enterprise resource planning (ERP), transportation management systems (TMS), and product lifecycle management (PLM) platforms.
Founded in 1980 and headquartered in Durham, U.K., Indigo Software provides software designed for mid-market organizations, giving users real-time visibility and management from the initial receipt of stock all the way through to final dispatch of the finished product. That enables organizations to optimize an array of warehouse operations including receiving, storage, picking, packing, and shipping, the firm says.
Specific sectors served by Indigo Software include the food and beverage, fashion and apparel, fast moving consumer goods, automotive, manufacturing, 3PL, chemicals, and wholesale / distribution verticals.
Schneider says its FreightPower platform now offers owner-operators significantly more access to Schneider’s range of freight options. That can help drivers to generate revenue and strengthen their business through: increased access to freight, high drop and hook rates of over 95% of loads, and a trip planning feature that calculates road miles.
“Collaborating with owner-operators is an important component in the success of our business and the reliable service we can provide customers, which is why the network has grown tremendously in the last 25 years,” Schneider Senior Vice President and General Manager of Truckload and Mexico John Bozec said in a release. "We want to invest in tools that support owner-operators in running and growing their businesses. With Schneider FreightPower, they gain access to better load management, increasing their productivity and revenue potential.”
Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but Mode Global said it will now assume Jillamy's comprehensive logistics and freight management solutions, while Jillamy's warehousing, packaging and fulfillment services remain unchanged. Under the agreement, Mode Global will gain more than 200 employees and add facilities in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Florida, Texas, Illinois, South Carolina, Maryland, and Ontario to its existing national footprint.
Chalfont, Pennsylvania-based Jillamy calls itself a 3PL provider with expertise in international freight, intermodal, less than truckload (LTL), consolidation, over the road truckload, partials, expedited, and air freight.
"We are excited to welcome the Jillamy freight team into the Mode Global family," Lance Malesh, Mode’s president and CEO, said in a release. "This acquisition represents a significant step forward in our growth strategy and aligns perfectly with Mode's strategic vision to expand our footprint, ensuring we remain at the forefront of the logistics industry. Joining forces with Jillamy enhances our service portfolio and provides our clients with more comprehensive and efficient logistics solutions."
In addition to its flagship Clorox bleach product, Oakland, California-based Clorox manages a diverse catalog of brands including Hidden Valley Ranch, Glad, Pine-Sol, Burt’s Bees, Kingsford, Scoop Away, Fresh Step, 409, Brita, Liquid Plumr, and Tilex.
British carbon emissions reduction platform provider M2030 is designed to help suppliers measure, manage and reduce carbon emissions. The new partnership aims to advance decarbonization throughout Clorox's value chain through the collection of emissions data, jointly identified and defined actions for reduction and continuous upskilling.
The program, which will record key figures on energy, will be gradually rolled out to several suppliers of the company's strategic raw materials and packaging, which collectively represents more than half of Clorox's scope 3 emissions.
M2030 enables suppliers to regularly track and share their progress with other customers using the M2030 platform. Suppliers will also be able to export relevant compatible data for submission to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a global disclosure system to manage environmental data.
"As part of Clorox's efforts to foster a cleaner world, we have a responsibility to ensure our suppliers are equipped with the capabilities necessary for forging their own sustainability journeys," said Niki King, Chief Sustainability Officer at The Clorox Company. "Climate action is a complex endeavor that requires companies to engage all parts of their supply chain in order to meaningfully reduce their environmental impact."