OSHA’s Top Ten Most Cited - #8 : Powered Industrial Trucks (PITs) - Final Part

In the first two parts of this three part series, we discussed training, certification and refresher training requirements for Powered Industrial Trucks. To close out this article, we’re going to touch on the last two parts of the standard giving employers so much trouble which deal with inspections and maintenance. More specifically we’re going to address these two parts, which we’ve included links for in case you want to read the actual standard.

• 178(q)(7): Daily/shift inspections
• 178(p)(1): Out-of-service trucks

While not part of the same section of the standard, these two parts are related in a sense that inspections are what identify defects and the unsafe PITs that OSHA requires employers to take out of service. What often happens is a general neglect of the inspection program where employers are either not requiring inspections at the intervals required (or at all in some cases), they’re not following up on those inspections, they’re not removing PITs from service when found to be unsafe and/or they are removing them but not in a way that prevents those PITs from being used until repair takes place. (As a side note, the latter of these things happens when an employer doesn’t have enough PITs and taking one out of service entirely will interfere with work getting done or when there’s very poor communication involved.)

The bottom line with this is pretty simple. If you have PITs, they have to be inspected at least daily unless they’re used around the clock, then they must be inspected after each shift and if there are problems found during those inspections, the associated PITs must be removed from service in a way that prevents workers from using it until it’s been properly repaired. There are several ways employers manage to mess this up, the first of which is by not documenting inspections at all or relying on paper forms—both make keeping up with PIT problems difficult if not impossible. By not documenting inspections, there’s no way to know what’s defective or what needs to be removed from service, nor is there a way to prove the inspections are happening should OSHA ask. Paper inspection forms have their own issues and can be a nightmare to manage, especially when there are large numbers of PIT inspections to keep up with. Paper forms are also easy to manipulate and pencil whip both of which will kill any ability for the employer to identify and address unsafe equipment.

There are much better ways of managing this by either implementing a telemetry system like Yale Vision or Hyster tracker which helps keep track of PITs and their operators by requiring inspections before the PIT can be used, alerting of potential problems, tracking mileage and usage, alerting when and where impacts have occurred and many other really great features or when telemetry isn’t in the budget, implementing EHS software like EHS’s Insight’s Audit & Inspection module which allows customized inspections to be created and performed electronically and when problems are noted, allows for CAPAs to be generated and tracked through to completion. Either way, employers have to make sure those inspections are being performed as required, are collecting the right information and are triggering removal from service and maintenance when required.

Final Thoughts

It should really be of no surprise that violations of the Powered Industrial Truck standards consistently land on OSHA’s annual top 10 list, especially considering the number of PIT related incidents and fatalities being reported each year. If you weren’t aware, based on NSC’s data, since 2011 there have been at least 918 forklift related fatalities in US workplaces and roughly 87,900 incidents involving days away from work, many of which could probably have been avoided with proper training, inspection and maintenance. This is one reason we decided to have this discussion and we hope it provided some clarification and insight into exactly what employers seem to be struggling with when it comes to managing their PITs and on what employers can do to improve things.

For those readers looking to get control of and improve your powered industrial truck program, we’re confident that we can help. Why not take a chance and reach out to see what EHS Insight can do for you?