Mosaic Company

Memorandum TO: FROM: DATE: SUBJECT: Karl Tomaszewski, Plant Manager Jacob Hamilton, summer student May 1, 2014 Proposal Report to Allow Summer Students to Operate Fork Trucks.

As requested, I have investigated the possibility of allowing qualified and responsible summer students to be trained and licensed to use fork trucks during their summer employment at the Mosaic Company. I understand that the summer student program is to help students pay for college, but students are also helping the company during the busy season and training them to operate fork trucks will further the benefits of the summer student program to Mosaic. Ultimately, allowing summer students to operate fork trucks will save Mosaic money and will make the summer students more valuable to Mosaic. Problem During my 2012, 2013 summer employment at Mosaic I have encountered various circumstances that required the use of a fork truck. Other summer students and I have been ready to complete the task of moving citric acid, but then realized that none of us were licensed to operate the fork truck needed to complete the task ahead of us. In order to complete the job, we were required to wait for a fork truck certified employee to move the citric acid for us. These types of situations happen every day, sometimes more than once. This dilemma takes full-time employees away from more important/pertinent tasks and also decreases the summer students efficiency and value to the Mosaic Company. In order to maximize summer student efficiency and value to Mosaic, I recommend that the Mosaic Company allow summer students, who will commit to working for Mosaic for at least two summers, to be trained and licensed to operate fork trucks. I recommend that summer students, who want to be trained and certified to operate fork trucks, commit to working two summers at Mosaic because of the extra expenses due to hours spent in training. This will allow summer students to perform tasks like emptying hoppers of salt, moving pallets of salt product, and staging parts for other employees that will be installing them. Objective If the Mosaic Company were to allow summer student employees to be trained and licensed to operate fork trucks, there would be some considerable benefits for Mosaic. Implementing this idea would reduce the time it takes to perform tasks, because instead of waiting for a licensed

fork truck operator, summer students would be able to get the job done right away. It would also increase the value of having a summer student program by allowing summer students to perform more tasks and complete them in a timely fashion. Allowing summer students to operate fork trucks would minimize the cost of having unnecessary man hours to perform a single person task. And finally, one of the most important benefits is that this would allow normal full time employees to focus on tasks that are more important and pertinent to the companys production and success. Solution The alternative to not allowing summer students to be trained and certified to operate fork trucks is to allow responsible and qualified summer students to be trained and certified in fork truck operation. The alternative considered needs to evaluate the pros and cons associated with implementing an alternative solution. Cost is a big deal and will be the deciding factor; if it will cost Mosaic more money to train summer students than they will save it is not financially logical. The question of the level of responsibility a summer student should have also needs to be considered; summer students will need to prove to their supervisors that they are responsible enough to be trusted with this privilege. They should exhibit behaviors in the work place that are responsible and safe, as well as have a good driving record. Method Training and licensing summer students to operate fork trucks is a pretty straight forward process. Mosaic already has a training program in place for its full time employees, so extra costs would only be the hours spent in training and taking the skills competency test. According to OSHAs Fork Truck Training Guidelines the classroom portion of the training will take just over 4 hours to cover the topics that need to be taught to the summer students. After completing the classroom training session, students are required to take a written exam that will evaluate the operators performance on the classroom material; 1 hour should be added to the classroom time for this exam. The classroom training portion for 1 summer student to operate fork trucks will require 5 hours of the summer students working time and an additional 5 hours for the instructor doing the training and administering the written exam. In addition to the classroom training, there will need to be 2 hours for hands on training and practice. OSHA also says that once the person completes the classroom test with a passing grade and displays the required hands on training requirements, they can be certified as a fork truck operator.
Personnel Summer Student Safety Specialist Total included time Time Analysis To Receive Fork Truck License Classroom time Exam time Skills time 4 Hours 1 Hour 2 Hours 4 Hours 1 Hour 2 Hours Total Training time 7 Hours 7 Hours 14 Hours

Costs Summer students make between 13 and 14 dollars per hour and the total training time will amount to 7 hours of unproductive time in order to certify summer students to operate fork trucks. So the cost for just the summer students time will be 100 dollars to train and certify them to operate fork trucks. The Mosaic employee in charge of training summer students, usually the companys safety specialist, makes about 20 dollars per hour. He/She will be required to work with the summer students in training for the 7 hours required for classroom training and skills assessment. This equates to 140 dollars for the instructor to train the summer student how to operate a fork truck. It will cost a total of 240 dollars to train and certify summer students to be able to operate fork trucks. OSHAs certification regulations state that a fork truck operators license is good for 3 years, which is the number of years summer students are allowed to work for Mosaic. Thus, training and certifying summer students to operate fork trucks will only have to be done once during their time of employment. During the summer students average week of work at Mosaic, there is 2 to 3 hours worth of work that has to be done with a forklift. During this 2 to 3 hour period, the summer students in charge of performing the task at hand are required to wait at the job site until a full-time employee can stop what they are doing to move materials, with the fork truck, for the summer students so that they can resume their duties. This delays the summer students work for 3 hours per week and also takes full time employees away from their tasks for 3 hours. Due to the summer students having to wait for a certified employee to operate the fork truck, Mosaic loses 42 dollars a week. Full-time employees make 18 dollars per hour, which is another 54 dollars worth of time spent on tasks that are unimportant compared to their normal task of keeping the facility running. So there is a total of 96 dollars per week that is lost because of summer students not being able to operate fork trucks. It will cost Mosaic 240 dollars to certify summer students to operate fork trucks, but this does not compare to the money lost due to the unproductive time associated with waiting for a fulltime employee to operate the fork truck needed for a job. Summer students usually work for 12 weeks, thus Mosaic will lose 1,152 dollars over the summer. A summer student generally works for 3 summers, which totals 3,456 dollars lost over that time period because summer students are not able to operate fork trucks.

Cost Analysis Chart

1400 1200 1000 1152 912 Money Lost By Not Certifying Summer Students (Per year) Cost to Certify Summer Students (Only requires 1 certification for 3 years) Savings Associated With Summer student Certification (Per year)

Dollars

800 600 400 240 200 0 Cost Comparison

I ask that you consider my proposal to let qualified summer students operate fork trucks at your facility. If it is enacted there will be significant benefits for the Mosaic Company. I look forward to working with you to put this proposal into action, please contact me to discuss it further. You can contact me via hamilj13@ferris.edu or (231) 527-5936.

References "How to Get a Forklift Operator OSHA Certified." . Occupational Safety and Health Administration, 13 June 2010. Web. 18 Apr. 2014. <http://www.wikihow.com/Get-a-ForkliftOperator-OSHA-Certified>.