Ensuring Compliant Forklift Operations
If you had to guess, how many different outside organizations would you say are involved in setting requirements for commercial forklift activities? Perhaps you’d guess only one, referring to OSHA, the federal safety agency that most readers will be familiar with.
Perhaps you’d guess three, adding your state’s OSHA department and your insurance carrier to the list. Keep going – there are more!
For any given business, there are often upwards of a half-dozen discrete entities that govern powered industrial fork trucks and their use. These organizations vary in their authority and purpose.
Some are federal government agencies that produce legally-binding rules and codes, while others are third-party advisory groups that produce voluntary recommendations.
Across these different entities, forklift use is regulated in four main ways: the design and construction of a forklift itself, how a lift is operated (including operator training), how a lift is maintained and serviced, and how the spaces and systems that forklifts interface with are designed.
Collectively, regulatory organizations are mostly concerned with protecting the health and safety of workers, the general public, and the environment, each in their own way.
The Main Regulatory Codes Governing Forklift Usage
Let’s run through the primary regulatory bodies and codes applicable to forklift operations:
- US OSHA – the United States’ federal Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) is the parent agency that regulates all commercial forklift use in the nation. OSHA breaks its forklift standards into two main bodies of law:
- General Industry Standards – OSHA Standard 29 CFR 1910.178 is the predominant code section that applies to general industrial applications. In this standard, organizations will find detailed code requirements for forklift safety, design, maintenance, and training.
- Maritime Industry Standards – seaside and marine applications introduce unique risks that forklift operations must consider, which calls for special codes including OSHA Standard 29 CFR 1917.43 covering maritime powered industrial trucks, 29 CFR 1918.65 covering powered vehicles used aboard vessels, and more.
- For more on OSHA forklift standards including many helpful notices, directives, and letters of code interpretation, see this link.
- US DOL – when it comes to age-related work limitations, the US Department of Labor (DOL) takes a firm stance regarding powered industrial vehicles. Historically, underaged staff have been particularly put in harm’s way when operating forklifts, so much so that the DOL has included specific requirements in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) that require all forklift operators to be over the age of 18.
- US EPA – the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is another federal agency with an interest in commercial forklift operation, particularly regarding engine emissions and their impact on the environment. Business owners need to ensure that the forklifts that they operate comply with the EPA’s emission limits or else they’ll risk fines for excess pollution.
- US DOT – another federal agency involved with forklift operations is the US Department of Transportation (DOT), which is concerned with the handling of hazardous materials as they interface with transport vehicles that drive on public roadways. In these instances, forklift operators must be trained pursuant to DOT HazMat requirements.
- ANSI – the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is a non-profit technical advisory organization that develops voluntary consensus standards for a wide range of applications in practically all US markets and industries. ANSI’s B56.1-2020 Standard provides the technical safety criteria upon which most public regulations are built, including OSHA’s standards.
- State & Local Safety Agencies – many state and local agencies publish their own localized OSHA codes. In addition, many state OSHA agencies are the authorized enforcers of federal OSHA regulations, using state agents to carry out investigation, education, and correction activities directly. Here in North and South Carolina, the NC Department of Labor (NCDOL) and SC Department of Labor (SC LLR / SC OSHA) manage forklift compliance, respectively.
- Tangential Requirements – beyond the above primary regulatory bodies, there are additional agencies and organizations that publish guidance impacting material handling forklifts. Regional air quality districts (such as CARB), fire protection entities (such as the NFPA), industry-specific advisory groups, private insurance carriers and underwriters, and third-party standards groups (such as FM Global) may all have requirements that affect a given business.
Framing Forklift Compliance in terms of Risk Management
As with any federal or local law, forklift regulations are designed with a carrot-and-stick mentality. In other words, forklift regulations compel businesses to act in their own best interest while simultaneously laying out enforcement penalties should a business not comply.
Sadly, many businesses still today view forklift safety standards as intrusive barriers to productivity – a dangerous, negligent perspective to have.
One of the best ways that we’ve found to reframe this perspective is to focus on Corporate Risk Management. From this angle, forklift regulations stop being seen as a limitation, and start being seen as a way to drive even greater productivity and margin throughout the organization.
In this context, Risk Management is an organization-wide philosophy that prioritizes proactive identification, mitigation, and elimination (where possible) of risk in all its forms.
Since forklift regulations are rooted in safety to begin with, they inherently reduce operational risk everywhere they’re followed.
For this reason, forklift regulations themselves serve a very fundamental risk management function that business leaders can lean into for even greater benefit.
More carrot, less stick, as we’ll see with these few examples to convey the concept:
- Promote a Holistic Safety Culture – safety regulations are pretty bland on paper, but when translated into meaningful attention, care, and action across a workforce, can serve as the foundation for a company-wide safety culture where every employee adopts responsibility for the safety of their colleagues. This leads to fewer accidents, more peer-to-peer advocacy, and lower costs of compliance.
- Maximize Operational Efficiency – simply put, safer work environments suffer from fewer lost-time and work stoppage events, which translates into maximal operational efficiency and throughput. Max safety is synonymous with max uptime, as well as minimum risk of unexpected upsets.
- Minimize Overall Commercial Risk Exposure – beyond employee health and safety, forklift regulations reduce a company’s exposure to risk via good equipment maintenance, warehouse design, hazard communication, ongoing staff engagement and education, insurance compliance, third-party audit compliance, and many more practices.
As you view forklift regulatory compliance through the lens of corporate risk management, we suggest looking up each of the above regulatory agencies’ mission statements as well.
By doing so, you’ll come to understand each organization’s individual missions in managing public and worker safety risks. Altogether, the connection between regulatory compliance and corporate risk mitigation will become clear, allowing you to find many more ways to leverage compliance to improve your bottom line, both in terms of safety and commercial performance.