http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosins...A01-382250.htm

select quote:
"In Mabe's area alone, five of eight employees who drove forklifts to load products onto trucks have retired.

"That's just one shift," he said. "My supervisor asked me how long it would take to train someone to do the job and I said it would take about six months just to learn the basics." "


He's not talking about replacing the forklift guys is he?

 

yes he is. if nayone knows, what does this job entail that is that hard? i learned to drive a forklift in about 2min. and it took about a day to get the hang of loading, unloading, manuvering, etc.

 

I'm forklift qualified.

At $65 per hour, I'll be glad to work overtime!

 

Have you seen the forklifts at some of these assembly plants? They are huge!

 

i know, i've driven them.

 

Me too. Thats what I was thinking. I wouldn't call myself a forklift expert or anything but in six months I think I could build you a forklift from aluminum foil and rubber bands. It took like an hour tops and I was buzzing around on the thing like I knew what I was doin.

 

I wouldn't imagine that it's all THAT hard to learn, but consider that in a properly run plant, the forklift operator is on a very tight schedule and may have to make some quick decisions to keep a line running. Also, the traffic in some of these plants (vehicle and pedestrian) is very high. I used to work in a plant and they'd have traffic jams inside the plant.

 

Driving the forklifts wouldn't be the hard part. There would be all of the rules and procedures, learing the layout of the plant, learning labeling systems, etc. However, 6 months is a stretch.