No. 2: Forklift Philosophy - Do You Have One, Yet?
In the last article, I offered a definition of philosophy; a vantage point in which a person stands to view their environment). I also offered a reason why having a forklift philosophy is important; so people can productively discuss matters of forklift training, management, design, regulations, litigation, safety, productivity, etc.
My philosophy is NOT new thinking, as people like Descartes, Gilbert, and others have used it for a long time. What IS new is the application of the philosophy to environments that use forklifts or other types of powered industrial truck. This industry is lacking a common philosophical foundation, and LIFTOR.com hopes to remedy that...for as long as the forklift philosophy is useful.
In this article, I will offer the forklift philosophy that I use. It is systematic in its design; as simple as anyone can make it; does not have any built-in contradictions, and it is useful to most who are serious about forklift design, manufacturing, operator safety and productivity. If you learn this simple and useful philosophy, you can then decide whether it is something you want to develop and adopt as your own. If not, then I don't know whether LIFTOR.com will help you learn anything new. Best you be going along so you don't waste your time.
That said, here is an introduction to the forklift philosophy I use. So, necessarily I will start with the following definitions.
Accomplishment: a thing of value to someone expecting to receive it. The result of some action(s) that produced it; a result that can be seen and has value to the user or consumer of it.
Examples:In the world of forklifts, there are many different kinds of accomplishments (valuable things produced by a person's action.) depending upon the industry. Each of the following have value to the person expecting to use it:
- A trailer/van filled with finished good ready for shipment.(trailer load)
- Pallet loads of incoming goods on the receiving dock floor. (receipts)
- Pallet loads in their assigned location. (inventory)
- Forklift ready for service. (pre-shift inspected forklift)
- Bales of trash. (Trash Bales)
- Triple stack of pallet loads. (triple stack)
- Bill of Lading (B.O.M.)
- Packing list.
- Travel path clear of debris and pedestrians. (clear path)
Why is it important to identify and describe accomplishments? It is important because, employers and their supervision, need to produce those "things of value" that will ultimately result in revenues or cash to the business. For example, it can be said that the purpose of a consumer goods distribution center is to produce "trailer loads of finished goods ready for shipment" to their customer(s). "Trailer loads of finished goods" are the accomplishments of the distribution center. Without them, there would be no need for such a distribution center to exist. So, from receiving to shipping, the entire process can be described in terms of all the interim accomplishments that culminate in those trailer loads ready to be delivered to the customer.
In turn, the trailer loads are accomplishments to the customer because they are "things of value" customers expect to use in their own business.
Behavior:any action that can be seen or measured in some other way; any transaction between the environment and a person's repertory (skills, knowledge, and ability). It is important to discriminate between the terms behavior and accomplishment. They are related in important ways, but they are NOT the same, by definition. The important way in which they are related is as follows: Behavior produces accomplishment. In other words, people are paid to take action on their job for the purpose of producing some "thing of value", an accomplishment.
Examples: In the world of forklifts, there can be many different actions that an operator can take to produce just one job accomplishment, such as a "trailer load of finished goods". To produce a trailer load of finished goods, safely, here is a possible list of behavior(s), sometimes also called a task list:
- Place chock under rear-most wheel of trailer.
- Set auto dock lock.
- Set dock leveler or ramp minimum of 3 inches.
- Walk full into empty trailer to inspect for defects/debris.
- Mount forklift. Wear seat belt.Power on.
- Pick-up first load and move it to nose of trailer with no sliding.
- Repeat #6 until last load is loaded.
- etc.
You can produce a list of behavior(s) to describe actions required for every accomplishment needed by any organization to fulfill its purpose.
Behavior is what a person takes with him or her wherever they go. It is their personal repertory of skill, knowledge and abilities. It can be described as the actions they can take. It does not describe the accomplishments (things of value) that usually belong to their employer.
To remember the difference between behavior and accomplishment, here is a limerick from Gilbert (1979): "Behavior is what you do at the time. Accomplishment is what you leave behind"
In other words, behavior is an action that passes with each cycle of it. What you produce from the behavior; the accomplishment that results from it, definitely has value to someone else expecting to use it. Accomplishments have value because they are something you can leave at work when you go home each day.
To tell whether you were at work, all your boss needs to do is look at all the triple stacks, trailer loads with finished goods, and inventory stored in the racks. He/she doesn't actually have to watch you work to tell that you have been producing things of value to the business.
Remember: Behavior produces Accomplishment. These two terms, behavior and accomplishment are at the heart of the Forklift Philosophy. Using just these two terms, we can explain, describe, set standards, calculate, re-design and otherwise improve forklift environments for safety, productivity and a lot more. Stay tuned to see how LIFTOR members have used this very systematic, and useful forklift philosophy.
Gotta Go...
Joe