Northgate Markets
Improve Safety and Inspection Compliance with InfoLink Fleet and Operator Management
Optimize Performance and Safety
Ensure 100% Reporting Compliance
Electronic filing of pre-shift inspection reports has increased operator compliance by 150 percent, ensuring the company meets OSHA reporting requirements.
Encourage Safe Behavior
Intelligent impact thresholds and notifications help ensure the entire fleet is operating safely and productively with every shift.
Optimize Fleet Performance
The accurate, real-time utilization data enables management to make intelligent decisions about truck purchases, assignments and planned maintenance, optimizing the performance of the entire fleet.
“I get a pre-trip on every piece of equipment that every individual gets on every day, period. It's just one less thing you've got to worry about.”
Keith McCarron
Director of Distribution – Northgate Markets
Application
Northgate Markets, located in Anaheim, CA, is a family owned and operated business that distributes fresh produce, meats and grocery items to 47 stores in the San Diego, Los Angeles and Orange County, CA markets. Their 385,000 square foot distribution center includes more than 100 pieces of material handling equipment, including reach trucks and pallet trucks with specific tasks. This equipment runs almost continuously throughout their sixteen hour days.
Challenge
Although the company had processes in place for gathering pre-shift safety inspection data, it struggled to get its operators to document inspections and avoid impacts on a consistent basis. With a stated goal to minimize workplace injuries and expenses, Northgate Markets needed a fleet management solution that would ensure its operators were properly completing and documenting pre-shift inspections and would intelligently monitor lift truck impacts to help modify operator behaviors.
Solution
Crown’s InfoLink Operator and Fleet Management System immediately boosted Northgate Markets’ inspection report compliance rate from approximately 40 percent to virtually 100 percent, ensuring that every lift truck is operated only when it is safe to do so. Management established individual impact thresholds for each truck and application, and used the impact notifications to help modify operator behavior. As an added bonus, fleet utilization data has helped the company optimize the number of different trucks in its fleet based on application and workload and has also ensured that planned maintenance is performed as often as needed.