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15th Oct 2021
If you are running a business operation that requires the use of many forklifts you need to adopt very effective fleet management practices. Doing so will help you cut down on your costs, improve the efficiency of your operations and eliminate unnecessary downtime while keeping your operations safe. In this article, we look at some of the most important fleet management practices that you can adopt today to ensure you are running a profitable business operation.
Maintain Constant Communication
Managing your fleet is much more efficient with the participation of all the people who are involved with the fleet on a daily basis. Therefore it is important that you keep constant communication with your technicians, forklift operators, and supervisors. One of the ways to focus this communication and ensure that they are giving you relevant feedback is to ensure you outline exactly which data they should be keeping a record of. You can then use this data to make some of the critical decisions concerning your fleet while factoring in their input.
Make Fleet Classification a Priority
If you run a busy warehouse then you definitely handle different kinds of jobs that need different kinds of forklifts. It is therefore important to make sure that you classify your fleet into the different categories they fall in based on unique identifiers like the chassis number, tire type, and serial number. When you have such detailed classification your work will be very easy when it comes to sorting out issues arising with a specific forklift. It could also be of help if you need to find it's parts for maintenance purposes.
Schedule Regular Maintenance
No doubt forklifts are normally used to handle some of the toughest jobs in a warehouse. Over a period of time, they will develop some wear and tear that makes them inefficient for use causing unnecessary downtime. The only way to ensure that this does not happen is to schedule regular maintenance for each forklift involved in your operations. Regular maintenance will enable you to spot potential problems while still in developing stages so that they are corrected in good time without affecting your operations.
Invest In a Fleet Management System
There is no reason why you should not invest in fleet management software as they come with many benefits. For instance, they have the ability to generate periodic reports that can help you in analysis and identification of gaps that have an impact on your operations. Using one will also help you in the allocation of your fleets to the different jobs in the warehouse in a more efficient way that eliminates chances of idle forklifts. You can also use the software to monitor the driving habits of your forklift operators and put in better measures to boost safety.
Here are some of the advantages that you can get from using a fleet management software;
1) An Overview Of Your Forklift Fleet Utilization
The utilization of a forklift determines by a great margin how much ROI you will get from it.
However, to accurately measure utilization you will need your review to be backed by proper data for accuracy.
Therefore a good forklift management system should provide you with data related to the forklifts running time, 24-hour utilization, mileage, and traveling working hours.
Analysis of such data will help you understand how underutilized or overutilized the forklifts are.
2) A Forklift Safety Management Report For Analysis
Forklifts are some of the major contributors to accidents in the warehouse, therefore minimizing this risk should be a key priority.
A good fleet management system should provide you with critical information to help you identify the risk areas unique to your forklift operations.
Some of the important aspects that it should capture are incidents of over-speeding, unfastened seatbelts, alarm details, and any risky behavior.
3) An Overview of Your Forklift Operator's Performance
Forklift Operators are key to the efficiency of your forklift operations, therefore you need to keenly monitor their performance.
A good forklift fleet management system should provide you with important information on the driver like whether they are putting in adequate working hours, their history of violations, and their general productivity.
You can therefore identify areas that your operators need training on and what measures you can put in place to improve their performance.
4) Forklift Operator Authorization Management Measures
One of the major causes of unsafe forklift operations is the operation of the forklifts by unauthorized personnel.
An effective way of preventing this is through the adoption of measures that ensure only authorized personnel have access to the forklift.
A good fleet management system should help you achieve this by allowing you to determine who can access the forklift and who can't.
You will, therefore, rest assured that only your trained personnel have access to the forklifts.
5) Provides Updated Forklift Maintenance Information
A forklift's maintenance is important for both efficient and safe operations.
A key factor that determines the frequency of a forklift's maintenance needs is its usage.
Since the forklift fleet management system already monitors fleet utilization, you will be in a better position to determine how frequently to schedule maintenance visits incase of heavy use.
Optimal Warehouse Design
A great warehouse design can be very key to how you manage the forklifts in your fleet. For instance, if you have a warehouse layout that ensures your fleet is closer to the sections of the warehouse where they are needed the efficiency of your operations will improve. This is a step that will make sure your fleet travels shorter distances enabling the forklift operator to do more in a short time. In case you run a large fleet a great warehouse design will also mean the pathways are organized in a way that allows for smooth flow of forklift traffic which is time-saving.
Therefore for you to have an efficient fleet management operation make sure you maintain constant communication with your key personnel. For the ideal warehouse design for your business, you can consult experts who can tailor one based on your operations. Fleet management software is also helpful in case you want an automated and data-driven kind of approach to fleet management. Classifying your fleet also makes it easy for you to solve the problems unique to your forklift. Finally, make sure you schedule your fleet for regular maintenance to keep them in operation.
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