Is safety part of your day’s work?

There are many factors that contribute to operational safety. Numerous elements combine to create a safe environment, from ensuring that machines are safe to operate and your operators have received appropriate training through to providing safety-related equipment upgrades and analytics that inform you when maintenance should be done.

Of course, a culture of safety starts from the top with an organisational ethos and leadership that ensures the highest standards in safety management. Socially responsible companies also have a duty to ensure that the work environment and the equipment their employees use are safe in order to prevent accidents and improve worker satisfaction.

The process of maximising equipment safety starts before your operators arrive for work and continues after they have gone home. Below are some of the safety-related factors to consider pre-operation, during and post-operation at your site. 

“Safety is a holistic issue which relates to almost all operational aspects."

Pre-operation

Appropriate training helps improve operator skills. Kalmar Training Centre provides technical, driving and systems training on terminal and industrial equipment, combining theory and practice to ensure your operators and technicians are properly prepared to perform their work safely.

“Training is tailored to specific customer requirements,” explains Hanna Kosunen, Kalmar Services Product Portfolio Manager. “Drivers and technicians may come to Kalmar locations for their training, but members of our training team also travel to customers’ locations to provide both theoretical and hands-on training on site.”

Once your driver arrives for their shift, they confirm that everything is fine on the operational checklist, which can be done easily through Kalmar Insight, a digital solution for optimising operational performance. Another key step is to ensure that the fire extinguisher system is in place present and has been inspected.

“Every piece of equipment needs to be checked before it is used,” says Kosunen. “Kalmar Insight makes it easier for the operator to verify that all the major components have been checked, and if the condition of any of these components is found to be sub-optimal, the operator can make a record, including video footage, and send it directly to the operations back office.”

Meanwhile, Kalmar Care helps you maintain safe operations by ensuring your equipment is in good condition with customised agreements and visibility over current spare parts processes that improve parts availability and the efficiency of parts management processes. Service professionals help to reinforce the culture of safety while on site.

During operation

As a Kalmar customer you have access to a variety of upgrades that will limit machine operation if there is an attempt to operate it unsafely: for example if your operator is not wearing their seat belt. Responsibility for safe operation ultimately rests with the operator, but there are a number of operator assistance upgrade features that can be added to the machine.

“These include cameras that help the operator identify their surroundings and detect objects in the proximity of the machine and speed limiter systems that activate when the equipment is moved in non-optimal mode, for example,” says Kosunen. “The blue safety light and reverse alarm system upgrades inform site visitors and pedestrians of the moving vehicle.”

Kalmar Insight continues to work while the machine is in operation, monitoring several equipment KPIs (key performance indicators) to help you understand in a more detailed way how your equipment is being used.

Post-operation

Your operator may have left the cab, but machine analytics never rest. Automatic maintenance planning will prompt you to order a maintenance kit through our online ordering system Kalmar MyParts if running hours have been exceeded.  If there is an indication that the equipment was handling a higher than average number of of overloads, you can review how to further optimise fleet usage for increased safety and optimum equipment condition.

If the inspections and pre-operational checklist indicate a problem, Kalmar On-Call covers repairs, refurbishments, corrective and preventive maintenance in order to get your equipment back operating safely.

“Safety is a holistic issue which relates to almost all operational aspects from an equipment, operator and process perspective,” says Kosunen. “New digital solutions, strong day-to-day support expertise and optimisation services are examples of how Kalmar helps customers enhance safety in various ways.”

“Kalmar Insight and its automatic maintenance planning features reduces the time needed to order parts, avoids the risk of ordering the wrong parts and ensures the high quality that is a fundamental element of customer safety,” she concludes.