Forklift recalls hindered by poor parts supply practices31 January 2011

Too few suppliers of forklift truck parts are able to trace components they sell to lift truck manufacturers, dealers and users – potentially threatening product recall processes.

That's the warning from Peter Church of leaf chain supplier FB Chain. "Leaf chain is a safety critical product, which means that those companies that manufacture and supply it must have some kind of product tracking system in place. It is my view that not many actually do," he says.

"We are seeing more examples of chain entering the UK without any form of batch marking whatsoever. It is virtually impossible to recall a batch of potentially faulty and highly dangerous leaf chain once it has entered the market, if the chain cannot be matched with a batch number," he explains.

His point is that, under European regulations, manufacturers are required to batch test leaf chain and issue a manufacturing test certificate. However, because each batch will be cut in to several separate individual forklift chain orders, unless each piece of chain has some way of identifying it once it has been fitted to a truck, traceability is all but impossible.

"Historically every single leaf chain manufacturer supplied chain with its own unique batch traceability code clearly shown. These days, very few do," states Church.

"Like any manufacturing company, FB Chain faces price pressures and we recently considered economising by dropping our brass plate [identifier]," he continues. "However, we concluded that this would have compromised safety, so [it] remains an integral part of our product offering."

Church also worries that, without batch identification, chain specifiers cannot be sure that the chain they buy is right for the truck.

"Having a manufacturing test certificate number prominently displayed on the chain not only eases traceability but also enables the chain test certificate number to be cross referenced with the chain test certificate that comes with each length of forklift chain sold," he explains.

"If there is no way that an individual chain can be checked against its certificate, the certificate becomes worthless," he adds.

Brian Tinham

Related Companies
FB Chain Ltd

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