Warehouse and Operations as a Career, I\u2019m Marty and I appreciate you stopping in again today. As I was sitting down to record today, I noticed we\u2019re on the 150th episode of WAOC, 150 weeks of doing the program. That caught my attention that we\u2019re in week 32 of 2019, we only have 20 more weeks to wrap up our goals for the year! I\u2019m pretty much on track myself, how\u2019s yours coming along? Now\u2019s the time to check\u2019em out, we\u2019ve still got time to make things happen, if we\u2019re working from our plan, there\u2019s still plenty of time to adjust as needed! Speaking of working a plan, I wanted to share a listener\u2019s situation with the group, I\u2019m certain we can come up with some suggestions that\u2019ll help her out. She\u2019s working in a smaller distribution warehouse, I think she said there carrying around 890 items or SKU\u2019s, have 2 receivers that helps out with the put away process and sometimes will run pallets off of the dock as well. They have 1 sit-down forklift, 2 standup lifts, 1 reach lift and as for pallet jacks she said there\u2019s 2 single rider jacks and 3 doubles. She said they\u2019re not using any kind of attachments like clamps or slip sheets, just ordinary equipment, she didn\u2019t know the model numbers, but everything sounded like they were fairly new, she thought about 6 or 7 years old. From what she described all the pallet jacks were end controlled platform riders and the sit-down lift was electric. It all sounded like lighter weight equipment. She\u2019s been working there as an assembler and utility person for about 2 years and has some inside knowledge that one of the receivers will be leaving in about 9 months, he\u2019ll be going back to school. One of her goals is to be promoted to that receiving position! Her opportunity is that there is no equipment trainer at her company. The company has a 3rd party come out that instructs the 29cfr1910.178 or Powered Industrial Training as needed, she\u2019s been given the class so she can get in some practice, and her boss is good about either watching her or having someone take her to the back and observe her while she drives around but no one is really sharing any advice or pointers. She\u2019s just driving forward and backwards or driving around pallets. She doesn\u2019t feel she\u2019s getting any better and she\u2019s definitely not feeling comfortable on any of them yet. She wanted to ask if we had any pointers or tricks when it came to training and learning to operate any of that type of equipment. I suggested she maybe post something to one of our feeds on Facebook or Twitter using that little @whseandops or even post in the warehouse equipment operators community group on Facebook and I\u2019d bet several of our listeners would be glad to share some thoughts! After all, there the pro\u2019s!
\nSo, I thought today we\u2019d talk a bit about a few of the training techniques I see used out in the field and what I try and impress on the candidates I work with. Lets just start from scratch, that\u2019ll include all the equipment she\u2019s mentioned earlier. First off before anyone starts working with or even touches a piece of powered industrial equipment they need to be trained on its operation and authorized to be on it. I was glad to hear that her company had an instructor that came out and taught everyone about being safe on the units and ran them through the 29cfr1910.178 standard. So, as we would have learned from that training we should perform a pre-trip on any equipment or machine that we\u2019re going to operate or be responsible for right? With all her equipment being electric we should ask someone about the charging procedure. We\u2019ll need to know the proper disconnect or unplugging and the connecting or plugging up the equipment procedures as well as when we should charge the equipment. Now not all facilities may require an actual printed form be filled out to document our pre-trip. Some smaller organizations may just work off a report it to maintenance as needed program but I strongly suggest that we document ...