United Natural Foods is one of the largest wholesale distributors to the natural and organic foods industry. They are nationwide, supplying a wide range of retail outlets, natural foods specialty chains and regular neighborhood supermarkets with natural foods including dry grocery, frozen/chill, and related products such as nutritional supplements, personal care items and organic produce.

 United Natural Foods operates from 10 regional distribution centers strategically located across the USA.  The Mid-Atlantic region is served from a 270,000 square feet distribution center located in New Oxford, PA.  The facility handles 18,000 different items (sku’s) with 340 employees working in a three-shift operation of which 135 are trained and certified to operate 25 forklift trucks (9 order pickers, 13 reach type and 3 pacers).   

As the Facility Equipment Technician responsible for maintenance, Bill Travis was concerned with the driving habits of some lift truck operators. 

While working at a prior employment affiliation, Travis learned about truck accessory devices that would measure and record impact events, sound alarms and warn management, etc.  Bill asked the company’s Asset Protection Dept. to look around. They investigated and found the Shockswitch® ID system, a product of Texas-based, Shockwatch®.  They contacted the Dallas home office, who referred them to Regional Manager, Ron Pignatello.  Ron joined local dealer salesman, Scott Merrick of Lift, Inc. on a personal visit to the United Natural Foods facility in New Oxford to meet with Bill Travis and Facility Manager, Wojtek Patynowski.  Ron and Scott demonstrated the Shockswitch® system, which controls forklift access by requiring a prospective driver the “log on” with a simple key device, personally assigned to each authorized driver.  Supervisors use a similar key to download stored information from the truck-mounted Shockswitch® ID units and transfer the data to the Shockmate management software package on their office computer.

·        abnormal  impacts (adjustable to a particular environment)

·        exact time of abnormal impact event and operator identity

·        truck operating history – hours in use, etc.   

·        truck periodic maintenance history

·        pending lapse in driver certification – date when required retraining is due

 After the initial sales presentation, Scott Merrick arranged and hosted a visit to an existing Shockswitch® ID end user location where the United Natural Foods staff delegates were able to witness a real system at work and query some actual users. On the next step, Scott put his past installation experience to work helping Bill and his staff install two sample units and the companion operating software.  The test units were operated for a three month trial period and produced results such that the decision was made to proceed with installing the units on the remainder of the fleet (23 additional trucks). The units were purchased and installed in October of 2004. They were installed by the UNFI in-house equipment staff.  Merrick followed up closely during the installation and training period. UNFI management didn’t just install the units and push a start button!  They realized a successful program was about a lot more than simple electronics and computer analysis. They followed the full Shockwatch® program recommendations concerning operator adjustment and gradual behavior modification. October, November and December were dedicated to operator training and familiarity with the new system. Initially units were programmed to simply sound an alarm for “operator awareness”of rough driving practices. As of January 1, 2005 the full program was implemented with operator record retention and incident logging, etc.

During a recent interview, Facility Manager Patynowski, was asked what results they expected from Shockswitch®?  He commented, “ Our long range goals from the Shockswitch® program include:

“To produce a safer work environment,

reduce equipment damage,

and promote awareness of the value of equipment.

I expect the program will be expanded to all company locations if this proves successful here and it certainly looks like it will,”

Bill Travis added: “I like the Shockswitch® units because they build awareness of the cost of accidents. Our actual results so far indicate we will more than realize our goals. To date we are already showing a starting level of 50 hits* per week has dropped to 20 hits per week."  Hits of course often lead to damage, repair costs and downtime."

Companies spend as much as $4000/yr to maintain each forklift in operation and usually 50% of this is directly attributed to abusive driving. Most companies see a minimum reduction of 50% in damage to forklifts and company property when impacts are measured, recorded and suitable warnings issued via this precision safety monitoring and behavior modification aid from Shockwatch® called the Shockswitch®. 

The End

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