PLAYBOOK

How to streamline forklift inspections and OSHA compliance with digital safety checklists

How do you know if all safety measures are being followed in your warehouse?

Managers and supervisors often do dock-walks and other warehouse safety walk-arounds to identify hazards, check compliance, observe operator behaviors, and inspect equipment conditions.

But walk-arounds and operators conducting daily forklift inspections require time.

Supervisors and managers already have enough on their plate between customer requests, meetings, and pulling reports — these on the floor safety checks can easily fall through the cracks.

And with no system in place to track trends over time and follow up on issues, reports might be filed but not acted upon, leading to repeat issues undermining the entire process.

Especially if you’re using paper-based checklists to guide inspections.

In this playbook, we’re going to show step-by-step how our customers are using OneTrack to create and manage safety checklists for pre-shift forklift inspections and other equipment throughout their warehouses.

How it works

Build a list of safety questions.

Create your first official checklist.

Monitor inspections and lift status.

The Playbook

Step 1: Build a list of safety questions.

Every checklist needs… well, questions to answer.. The Question Manager tool allows you to create individual questions which you’ll later use when creating all of your safety checklists.

Here are 5 sample pre-shift forklift inspection questions that should be part of a daily forklift inspection checklist:

Are the tires properly inflated and free of damage?
Are the brakes and steering functioning correctly?
Is the hydraulic system free of leaks and functioning properly?
Are all lights, horns, and warning signals operational?
Is the forklift’s seat belt and other safety equipment in good condition?

Check out these best practices for more information on pre-shift inspection checklists to help ensure forklifts are safe to operate before use.

In OneCheck, you must first fill out the question information. Including writing out the question and selecting the right data type and input type for the operator’s answer.

Then, populate the dropdown with different answer options and configure the question logic, such as which answers would be considered a “fail” and follow up prompts for the operator to provide more details.

You will be given the option to further configure the question based on failed responses, including:

Block on Fail requires the operator to submit the checklist immediately with a failed response.
Request Detail on Fail requires the operator to provide additional details to the checklist question.
Capture Photo on Fail requires the operator to submit at least 1 photo with the checklist question.
Generate Event on Fail will trigger a maintenance event to be created.

Lastly, review your new checklist question. You can even test out the functionality for that question as it would look for an operator filling it out.

Rinse and repeat for as many questions that you need across your pre-flights, equipment inspections, supervisor dock-walks, and more.

Step 2: Create your first official checklist.

Now that you have built a list of all possible checklist questions using Question Manager, you are able to select from that list to create your official checklists.

To get started, add a new checklist in the Checklist Manager tool and fill out the checklist’s name and some additional information.

Then, select from the list of questions that you previously created to add to this particular checklist. Consider leading with an “Inspected By” question. When ordering and linking questions, you can even segment them in different groups.

This will allow you to shuffle the remaining questions to create a unique preflight experience every time an operator completes the checklist, which will help eliminate “pencil whipping”.

After adding all necessary questions, double check for accuracy and submit it. You now have a safety checklist completed and ready for use.

Step 3: Monitor inspections and lift status.

Unlike paper-based checklists, you can now easily manage and track checklists for your sites all in a single Warehouse Operating System.

After creating your questions and subsequent checklists, you can even link each checklist to the appropriate piece of equipment. This enables you to view the status of machines within your fleet, and whether or not a checklist has been submitted for it recently.

You can also automate alerts and notifications for overdue safety checks or maintenance tasks to avoid lapses in safety protocols. And search for any previously submitted checklists by customer, plant, and machine—revealing the time since last completion, total completions, and the name of the checklist itself with color-coded indicators.

For example, if Machine A was recently inspected, but Machine B is overdue for an inspection.

From lift utilization, maintenance reports, safety scores, and productivity—everything you need to get the most out of your MHE fleet is now centralized in a Warehouse OS.

Want to put this playbook to work for yourself?

Using this playbook is going to help you streamline inspections and minimize risk. You now have the ability to:

Create custom forklift checklist questions and randomize the order to eliminate “pencil whipping”.
Get full visibility into your inspection processes to easily review submissions, identify problems, and make compliance a breeze.
Properly document and centralize all of your checklists to make warehouse safety management more efficient and proactive.

OneTrack customers, good news! You already have this at your fingertips. Reach out to your implementation manager or support team with any questions.

If you aren’t a OneTrack customer, book a custom demo here. We’ll connect to better understand your operations and share how to:

Use AI to get alerted when safety incidents occur in your warehouse.
Digitize all your pre-shift OSHA forklift inspections.
Create a culture of safety and accountability in your warehouse backed by data.

Here's what our customers have to say

"We take the approach that all incidents are preventable, and the OneTrack system has the tools necessary to provide real time feedback and coaching to operators.”

Ken Heller

Chief Operating Officer

CJ Logistics America

50%

Reduction in non-injury related incidents

Read the case study