Afford a lift truck for the price of a fire extinguisher
True or false:
- Safety doesn’t sell, especially when it comes to selling lift trucks.
- Safety is dangerous, especially when lift truck dealers try to sell it.
Finished with my quiz? Now compare your answers to those of your colleagues who answered Modern’s recent Lift Truck Usage survey. In one section, lift truck buyers ranked safety at the top of the list of feature attributes they considered when shopping around. However, under “service attributes,” or what they want from a dealer or OEM, “training materials/programs” ranked at the bottom. Clearly, our respondents seem to be saying “give us well-designed lift trucks and we’ll take safety the rest of the way.”
Scott Johnson, director of dealer services at Clark Material Handling Co., doesn’t buy into answer number two. While chatting with him on the phone the other day for an article I’m working on, operator training came up. Here’s what he told me:
“We encourage our dealers, ‘When you’re not out there selling trucks, offer your OSHA certified training program because that’s an ongoing demand.’ It’s not dependent on the economy. What’s more, you have to be constantly training your people to keep them current with today’s regulations.”
That’s a refreshing perspective coming from someone in a sales position—especially since I just finished talking to someone who trains lift truck operators for a living. He thinks trying to sell training to lift truck buyers is a dangerous proposition for dealers because it will dash any chance the salesman has to win the customer over for an equipment purchase.
If you fit either of the customer profiles described above, listen up. I’m going to tell you how preventing one dumb lift truck incident could buy you a brand new lift truck. At least one lift truck. I know that because I just read about a company that suffered losses from not having a fully charged fire extinguisher on their propane lift truck. This appeared in Industrial Loader and Forklift Fires, a publication from the National Fire Protection Association.
A warehouse employee discovered a fire in the engine compartment of a vehicle being operated by a coworker. He alerted the driver, who shut down the lift truck. Because the fire extinguisher that was normally on the vehicle was missing, both men had to search for another. They found one, but it was also empty. Apparently, both units had been used to put out a recent fire and had been replaced without being recharged.
There was a fireball that consumed insulation and about 10,000 square feet of roof paneling. Damage: $300,000. You could buy several nice lift trucks with that.
Now I know OSHA doesn’t say much if anything about the use of fire extinguishers on lift trucks, but there is such a thing as a “General Duty Clause,” which requires employers to protect employees from recognized hazards. Fire is a big one, especially with propane trucks. A good training program, whether provided through your dealer or through a third-party trainer, will guide you through that.
If the employers of our friends in the above case would have realized that, their $300,000 could have been better spent on a few new lift trucks—and the training to go with them
Tom Andel
