Keeping your damage costs under control, be that truck damage or related infrastructure or goods damage, is one aspect of running a profitable business. But what causes impacts, which operators are involved, and what exactly does the latest service report tell you? Connectivity helps you monitor your truck fleet, which in turn lets you create a safer and more cost-efficient operation.
This blog post will explore why impact management matters.
Be safe, not sorry
Improper use of forklift trucks will result in additional service costs. Damage caused by impacts will prop up repair costs and lead to unwanted downtime. Impact management allows you to act, not just reactively, but also proactively.
From basic fleet information to a complete performance overview, the I_Site fleet management tool from Toyota uses online data from your Toyota smart trucks to measure, analyse, and maximise the performance of connected machines. I_Site Explorer helps you track impacts thanks to sensors on the trucks and the impact reports will help you find useful insights to take the correct action.
Impact management gives you an overview of the impacts registered, when they happened, how severe they were, who was driving and at what speed. Understanding what caused the impact can support you to reduce serious incidents, injuries or damage. Think of it as a collision avoidance system.
Put safety checks in place
In the I_Site analysis report you can set different levels for high, medium and low impacts:
- Low impacts could be imperfections in the floor
- Minor bumps into goods or infrastructure would be counted as medium impacts.
- Focus on the high impacts first as they are more severe and could be harmful.
Standard settings for the different thresholds can be customised.
I_Site actively supports safety while driving. In the event of an impact, I_Site Explorer from Toyota can apply shock lock-out making your machines go into creep speed mode. The supervisor or team leader instantly receives a notification by e-mail or an alert in the app. The machine will only be able to perform at full speed again after being reset by authorized personnel. I_Site can also tell who has unlocked the machine from creep speed.
Interpret the data to take appropriate action
I_Site tells you how often impacts occur for each machine and driver. It even lets you group your fleet into different machine and driver groups. This is a good way to understand if impacts relate to a certain team of machines or operators. It allows you to find out which team of operators is causing most impacts and may need extra operator training. Impacts related to each individual driver can also be shown. This can help you to understand where operator training is most needed. You can, for example, see if the forks were in lifting mode at the time of the impact or track the speed the machine had at the time of the impact. Based on this information you can better estimate which level of operator training is required.
It may also be an indication that the area in which the team is working is not safe enough or that the team is too busy. Workplace layout changes might be a good action to take to prevent accidents from occurring and protect surrounding infrastructure. With the I_Site positioning service you can monitor the coordinates where impacts occur. Information on the severity of the impacts and which machines and drivers were involved is available as well.
I_Site monitors impact trends and reports on what days impacts mostly happen. Based on this information you can take action accordingly, to lower the workload during hectic days, with the purpose of creating a safer environment.
Minimise impacts to increase safety and reduce damage
By dedicating 10 minutes a day working with impact management to find out where shocks or impacts happen, you can go to the root cause, communicate with your drivers to alert them to shocks, set up impact KPI’s to reduce the number of incidents and aim at zero impacts and damage cost, offer efficient driver training, reschedule working hours, make layout changes, etc.
In addition, the pre-operational check function prompts forklift operators to perform a customised safety check before starting up the truck. These checks will help prevent incidents related to existing machine failures and avoid extra maintenance costs.
To conclude, by spending a few minutes a day to impact management you’ll to create a safer work environment. I_Site Explorer can help you to reduce the risk of injuries and have less damage cost as a result.
