Currently, there is no consensus amongst training providers concerning the content and duration of training courses for fork truck sales personnel and service engineers. As it stands, many of these professionals undergo full operator training, which is an unnecessary and uneconomical waste of employer’s costs and trainees time.
This is a problem for another reason too – across the entire industry, engineers and sales personnel report that whilst on site they find themselves being called upon to stop doing their own job and to jump in and act as stop-gap operators by managers and supervisors – putting them in a very difficult and potentially dangerous position.
In direct response to this, The Association of Industrial Truck Trainers (AITT) has published a new standard for service and sales engineers, setting out precisely both the practical and theoretical requirements for the training and testing of lift truck service engineers and sales personnel.
This new training guide reduces the course duration from 5 days to 2 days, enabling trainers to exclusively target only the operator training necessary to be able demonstrate, work on and test a truck safely, confidently and efficiently.
Engineers and sales personnel taking this course will then be fully qualified in their roles but with a driving restriction, and an “R” certification that clearly shows that they are not operators, but engineers and salespeople.
Dave Sparrow, General Manager of AITT explained: “A forklift truck is only as safe and efficient as the professionals who supply, operate and maintain it. Trainers across the country have asked us to unify the training provision for these professionals by producing a blueprint that they can use to make sure that key issues are covered in sufficient depth.
“Importantly, we have also presented training provision that is streamlined so that we can get people back out on the shop floor as quickly as possible.”
The guide also includes detailed testing and marking schemes as well legal and health and safety requirements for training bodies.
As a leading authority in the industry, AITT’s committee of industry experts is well placed to produce this definitive guide. It is a totally independent, non-profit organisation and exists purely to support its Members – constantly striving to raise industry standards.
Dave Sparrow
Tel: 01530 810867
Email: dave@aitt.co.uk
Comments are closed.