Australia's market leader in counter-balance forklift trucks, Toyota, is backing a series of forklift safety seminars.
Toyota Material Handling has signed a one-year agreement to be the Gold Manufacturer Sponsor of the Forklift Safety Forums in New South Wales and Victoria*.
Victorian premium training company Ausfork instigated the seminar program, with extra expertise eventually added from its NSW-based equivalent, Forkpro Australia.
The half-day seminars are aimed at managers and supervisors involved in material handling.
They are free of charge to attendees as a community service and feature speakers from the forklift industry, independent bodies, the legal profession and regulatory bodies.
Ausfork principal Daryl Lord was a prime mover in developing the safety forums, with help from Forkpro Australia principal Todd Brennan.
Todd Brennan said industry sponsorship meant attendees could receive vital information on material handling safety at no cost to the individual companies.
He said it would cost one company thousands of dollars to assemble such a group of speakers for a half day. However, Brennan continues, at the seminars the only cost is the attendees' time - for the opportunity to gain a wealth of knowledge, ask questions to the expert panel, and compare notes with other managers and supervisors in the industry.
The Business Development Manager of Toyota Material Handling in Australia, George Malamatinis, said Todd Brennan and Daryl Lord had been heavily involved in forklift safety matters for many years and pursue the safety seminar program as a genuine industry service that can have a front-line effect on reducing forklift accidents.
Key topics of the seminars include:
* Changes in legislation that affect forklift activities
* Current best practice
* Protecting pedestrians in the workplace
* Forklift stability
* Forklift operator certification.
*Worksafe Victoria is the major Sponsor of the safety seminars in Victoria.