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It’s the start of the summer – the busy, hot, productive season. During these 3 -4 months its important to pay attention to the health and safety of your material handlers; from your human operators to the equipment doing the heavy lifting. A great production and output month can easily be undone by an equipment breakdown or an operator accident or loss of valuable product. I spoke with the experts at PennWest, who gave me a run down on the top 5 ways that you can maximize your business in the summer.

Top 5 Ways to Maximize Your Material Handling in the Summer Months

1. Get your Operators trained – Not all forklifts operate the same way, and with new hires during the busy season, it’s easy to overlook the very basic training that is needed to safely and efficiently operate all classes of equipment. By investing 8 hours into proper forklift operator training, you can typically shave seconds, if not minutes off of the time to move materials, and significantly reduce the risk of workplace accidents and material loss.
2. Clean your filters – Spring pollen does more than cause a few sniffles here and there. We recently had one customer who’s forklift air filter was clogged completely with the white fuzz from dandelion flowers! Additionally, warmer and drier weather also means more dust kicking up from the ground and clogging your filters. This combined with the heat can cause major issues if not dealt with early on.
3. Cool-off – Consider doing a coolant service (antifreeze change). Coolant isn’t just for keeping your engine from freezing, it also is meant to keep your engine running at the proper temperatures in the hot summer months. An engine operating at normal temperatures helps in fuel efficiency as well.
4. Take care of your battery – Battery care is also something overlooked in the summer because you may only consider your battery to fail in winter. The battery may have taken a beating in the winter and now higher ambient temperatures will cause depletion of the acid electrolytes in a lead acid battery.
5. Pay attention to your tire tread – Whether your forklift tires are cushion, solid pneumatic or pneumatic, or your running them inside or outside, there is a greater risk of tire separation and even potential chunking. If the tire is already down to the replacement indicators, replace them immediately.