Support for a lifting industry
October 14th 2008

Industrial trucks are essential to modern logistics and materials handling. But even an industry dedicated to lifting needs its own support, and that’s the role accorded to BITA, the British Industrial Truck Association. Here BITA Secretary General James Clark explains how BITA’s diverse range of member services makes it an indispensable ally for UK manufacturers.

BITA is the UK’s leading trade association for forklift truck manufacturers and suppliers, companies supplying associated components and services, and the materials handling media – including Handling & Storage Solutions. Formed in 1947, BITA currently represents 82 member companies, including suppliers and manufacturers, giving it a broad and informed perspective on the current industrial truck market.

More than 90 per cent of all new forklifts procured each year in the UK are manufactured and distributed by BITA members. The industrial truck industry employs more than 7,000 people directly, and enjoys a combined annual turnover of £1.3bn, making it a key player in the UK’s economy.

Although BITA provides numerous benefits for members, its most important activities are promoting lift-truck safety, lifting industry standards, monitoring sales and, since May 2008, providing an economic forecasting service.

Safety First

One of BITA’s key aims is to raise health and safety standards in the industry. Industrial truck users face hazards that even the highest manufacturing technologies cannot eliminate. Safety, however, can be managed in, through compulsory initial operator training and then by the continual reinforcement and application of best practice. In the average industrial truck’s operator environment, however, there is no space to carry around bulky reference materials that might help operators consolidate the ‘best practices’ they have been taught.

What’s needed is a portable best practice guide that operators themselves can carry with them for instant reference and checklists before starting work and to account for all eventualities during the working day.

To meet this need, BITA offers a series of pocket-sized safety booklets, whose contents provide practical day-to-day advice in the same way that the Highway Code applies to road usage. The safety booklet also serve as a valuable aide-mémoire for lift-truck users who adopt a continuous ‘on-the-job’ approach to Operator Training.

The BITA booklets represent a distillation of over 50 years’ wisdom in the safe and efficient operation of industrial trucks. There are four separate publications addressing every facet of the lift-truck market. All are continually updated to reflect evolution in products, applications and legislation. The list includes:

• the Operator’s Safety Code for Powered Industrial Trucks (the Green Book)

• the Operator’s Safety Code for Rough Terrain Lift Trucks (the Red Book)

• Dos and Don’ts for Users of Industrial and Rough Terrain Lift Trucks (the Blue Book)

• Stability Awareness for Powered Industrial Rough Terrain Lift Trucks (the Yellow Book)

More details of all booklets are available online at www.bita.org.uk/BITASafetyBooklets.htm – they are also available to purchase online with a 20 per cent discount for members.

Lifting industry standards, raising the game

Although BITA is UK based it operates at UK, EU and global levels to influence developments and advances in industrial truck safety, performance, cost-effectiveness and significance. A key factor in this activity is BITA’s Technical Policy Committee (TPC), which establishes and promotes BITA’s technical policies while also alerting operators and users to the requirements and consequences of new standards.

The TPC distils key points and actions required by new standards both in regular executive briefings provided to BITA members, and in the frequently update BITA Guidance Notes. (Also available on the BITA website – see www.bita.org.uk/BITAGuidanceNotes.htm.

BITA works in partnership with a whole host of organisations and

regulatory bodies, including:

• the British Standards Institution, BSI

• the European Committee for Standardisation, CEN

• the International Standards Organisation, ISO

• the Health & Safety Executive, HSE

• the International Electrotechnical Commission, IEC

Additionally through its membership of the British Materials Handling Federation, BITA is a stakeholder in the Federation Européenne de la Manutention, European manufacturers' association of materials handling, lifting and storage equipment. Market measurement… and an eye to the future Knowledge of market trends is crucial for any business, but in the UK, BITA is the sole provider of industrial truck sales statistics, contributed by – and only made available to – BITA members.

Gathered and distilled into precise, pertinent and simple-to-apply statistical data, BITA’s sales statistics provide an ongoing illustration of market conditions as recorded by BITA’s 82 members.

BITA thus holds a unique repository of information on the current state and historical trends of the UK fork-lift market.

The most recent BITA sales statistics indicate that order books are remaining in much better health than current gloomy headlines might have heralded. Data for the second quarter of 2008 shows that the UK market for fork lift trucks stood at an annualised 30,200 unit orders, which is a strong showing compared with the 25,000 per year sales experienced 10 years ago.

This finding correlates well with the new members-only economic forecasting service introduced by BITA at its 2008 AGM. This takes the form of a 30-page ‘Forklift Market’ report, prepared by renowned analysts Oxford Economics. The report examines prospects for the lift truck market in the context of the bigger economic picture, and concludes that while there is likely to be a downturn of orders in 2008, stability in 2009 will be followed by small but positive sales increases year on year until 2012.

And finally…

While BITA focuses firmly on the economic, technical, safety and legislative issues concerning its members, it also keeps sight of the essential social aspect in any industry. Every year it brings together industry members (and their guests) in settings such as the BITA Ball and Golf Day, where business can blend naturally with pleasure. This year’s BITA Ball (May 2008) raised £4,000 for charity, while in September 2008 75 hardy souls braved the rain to play 15 holes on the BITA Golf Day.

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