How safe are warehouses, logistics and manufacturing environments? According to 2020/2021 research by HSE, 30 people died in manufacturing, transport and storage after having sustained fatal injuries at work. These could be due to getting struck by a moving vehicle or object, getting trapped or contact with moving machinery.

Roughly 25% of workplace transport injuries are a direct result of forklift truck accidents, according to Britsafe. Around 1,300 UK employees are hospitalised each year following forklift accidents and there are an estimated 8,000 reported injuries due to Material Handling Equipment (MHE) collisions each year in the UK alone. In the US, an estimated 85 people lose their lives every year due to forklift trucks.

RFiD Discovery offers different ways of keeping your staff safe

Warehousing is the largest area of the UK’s transport industry, where employees move around storage facilities, make use of forklifts and move RTLS items around, often with not many others around.

Protect Lone Workers

RFID tracking solutions can provide wireless tracking of staff who are in danger of work related injuries to help manage efficient emergency responses. Workers wear a pocket-size transmitter for real-time positioning which identifies the name and the location of the person in need. Two emergency call buttons enable the worker to manually raise an alert.

In addition, if required the transmitter can include a fall detection capability that automatically triggers an alert should the protected worker become unconscious. Additional features include an onboard tilt switch or a pull-cord which automatically raises an alert should the wearer have fallen or if the unit has been grabbed by force.

Make forklifts safe to use at your workplace

Most forklift truck safety systems use proximity sensors.These are effective but often cause false alarms; for example, where a member of staff is close to a truck but protected by a safety barrier. When false alarms become the norm they are often ignored. By comparison, our solutions use location-aware safety alerts, which take into account the location of fixed warehouse equipment. As a result, when a warning is triggered through lights or an audible alert, staff know that it’s a real alarm which needs action.

This functionality is combined with real time monitoring and data capture. It therefore becomes possible to prevent accidents, provide the data to reduce incidents and near misses still further and enhance longer term warehouse and site planning.

Reduce MHE risk

Considering tracking solutions in your facility is important as they can help reduce the risk of working with and near MHE such as forklift trucks, cranes and straddle carriers in ports, airports and other outdoor logistics environments.

Intelligent location aware systems can detect the position of MHE and pedestrians to trigger an alarm when they are at risk of collision.

Benefits of RFID tracking solutions

Increased staff safety

Safeguards your company’s reputation

Avoids false alarms and alarm fatigue

Improve warehouse and manufacturing safety

FACT

In the US, there is one fatality every four days due to a forklift truck. That’s on top of the thousands of people that suffer major injuries due to MHE in warehouse and logistics environments. Shocking? Yes. Avoidable? Again, yes.