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Posted By Robert S Woods
Has anyone had to have the forks on lift trucks changed because of wear on the heel of the fork? If so what is the cause (I know: catching on the floor). The drivers say it’s with picking pallets on slopes (unlikely as the site is as flat as a pancake).
All help gratefully received.
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Posted By jeffrey david smith
Try watching them carefully to see if you can see any problems.
Sounds like (as not seen it and you say the place is flat) that they are sitting the forks on the floor and tilting them back to slide into the palet holes.
Jeff
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Posted By Merv Newman
Does happen and is one of the points checked during maintenance inspections.
However, we preach "it's better if you aim for the tibias" (not "must aim for")
That means driving with the forks or the forward point of the load at about 12 to 15 inches from the floor.
The old training told truckies to drive with the load as low as possible. But too many broken ankles convinced people that a little bit more height could avoid a permanently crippling injury.
And they tell me that a fractured tibia ain't that bad really.
Merv
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Posted By Ray Thompson
Hi Robert
We had this issue in a large multi national warehousing operation.
Our solution was to weld wear strips on the heels and add the checking of them onto the pre shift check sheet. When the strips become worn excessively it is just a case of having the 'competent, coded' welder come back in and replace the strip, much more cost effective and quicker than waiting for forks to arrive from the supplier, hope this helps.
Ray
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Posted By darren booth
heel wear on the forks is almost certainly a symptom of the operator not raising his forks to the "safe travel" position. the cause of this is ,in my experience , drivers not lifting the forks inbetween drop off and pick up. as jeffery says, observing the drivers in action should reveal the source of trouble.
i am working in an environment where all flt operators are fully trained with regular refreshers, but this kind of occurence is commonplace- mainly due to insufficient supervision.
to ray,welding plates on the forks is not going to stop the unsafe practice of the driver.
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Posted By Ray Thompson
Darren
I totally agree with you that the plates do not prevent poor practises, however, my observations at the time showed that the issue was caused as the driver lowered his fork to the floor, and then scraping it along the floor before lifting them to engage the pallet.
When questioned as to why this practise was adopted all of the drivers stated that they are under pressure to get their trailers loaded in the 25 minute slots they are given, and as such precision has to give in to speed.
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Posted By Darren J Fraser
Sorry, but any driver that states they are under pressure to unload a trailer in 25 minutes and therefore precision gives way to speed, needs to be backed up by the elf and safety officer when explaining to their management team why this is such an unsafe practice, or have I missed something here?
If the time slot cannot be changed then there are alternative ways of unloading a trailer in that time, that is safer e.g. one FLT unloads to a very local holding area, other FLT's then collect and distribute load accordingly.
This restricts the number of FLT's moving around the trailer and accompanying lorry, thereby minimising to as low a level as possible the vehicle / human interface.
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Posted By Innes Gray
in my experience the fact they are running on concrete is not the worst case i found that steel to steel when picking up stillages wears forks at an alarming rate
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