Sharing expertise on safety

THE SAFETY in Logistics digital conference took place on November 23 and gave attendees a wide range of lessons on safety in the world of logistics and material handling. 

The good news is that if you missed the original broadcast, the recording is available to view On Demand for one year. This article is a quick recap of the digital conference. If it whets your appetite, simply follow the link - https://bit.ly/3RbfHm4 - register for the event and watch at your leisure.

Humanising health & safety

Our first speaker was GXO UK & Ireland director of safety Lisa Spicer who spoke on the subject of building a cultural shift within the workforce from a preoccupation with compliance to a focus on behaviour.

Lisa asked: “Compliance is valid, but is it the documented paperwork that is going to keep people safe?”

She continued: “In some respects the way health and safety is portrayed, for example in ‘do not…’ signage can cause derision and demotivation. 

“It’s not about zero accidents, it’s about how all accidents are preventable.”

This led GXO to focus more on culture and behaviour several years ago.

Lisa went on to explain how GXO is on a structured programme to humanise its health, safety and well-being culture, by bringing to life the importance of protecting colleagues, customers and suppliers. It has made significant progress in changing the culture from compliance based to behaviour focused. As a result of its efforts, GXO has met its safety goals, and more importantly, engaged colleagues much more effectively.

Lisa adds: “The leadership team was determined this was not an initiative, it is our philosophy.”

Loading Bay Safety

Loading bays are serious accident blackspots. Loading dock accidents, especially in busy distribution centres, are a frequent, costly and potentially devastating work place occurrence. Not only do they account for a significant level of all workplace incidents, loading docks are the scene of a high number of major injuries and fatalities, often of a shocking nature. Yet reliable solutions do exist to prevent the most common and most serious causes of major accidents in the warehousing and logistics sectors, such as trailer creep and premature driveaway. Vincent Tremouilhe and Marc Kennedy, both from GMR Safety - the Canadian manufacturer of wheel-based vehicle restraints, used their presentation to highlight the practices and equipment that can improve loading bay safety in your facility.

GMR Safety was joined by customer Dirk Liesens, site manager at DSV - Global Transport and Logistics, who outlined how GMR Safety equipment boosted safety on the site he is responsible for.

Dirk explained in the presentation: “There was an incident at the loading dock, with a truck moving and a forklift involved. That got us thinking that our manual chock solution was not sufficient. 

“We wanted something that would guarantee this would not happen again; be easy to maintain; and be simple for drivers to understand and use.

“When we set up a dock to test the product, we went outside to explain to the driver how to use the new system and found he had already deployed it correctly, without instruction, which was convincing for us.”

Andover fire

Alison Phillips, the head of fire safety risk management at Ocado, spoke about the lessons learned from the Andover fire in 2019 and how these lessons have enabled the business to become a leader in fire prevention and mitigation. Alison Phillips is an innovative Risk Engineer with a career spanning over 20 years. She has held dynamic roles within consultancy, financial services and working directly for clients. Alison is now spearheading the fire safety strategy within Ocado Group.

Alison explained in her presentation: “Top-loading storage systems are relatively new to warehousing. Unlike traditional warehousing with racks etc, these systems comprise densely arrayed totes, 21 levels high, on grids the size of football pitches.

“We are at the cutting edge of technology but this means we have to take steps to mitigate risk. Three key elements are that fire authorities should understand top-loading storage systems risks; stakeholders should understand our acronyms; and procedures should be followed under stress conditions.”

Handling long loads safely

Hundreds of avoidable accidents happen every year due to the misuse of forklift trucks. Long loads in particular are often handled incorrectly, despite the fact there is a machine built for the job. Baumann sideloaders global marketing manager Tony Benson used the presentation to discuss the three ways in which the majority of accidents happen and the key to safer handling for long load applications such as timber, steel, plastics and concrete.

The presentation features a video illustrating a range of spectacular Baumann case studies throughout the world, as well as key Baumann personnel highlighting important safety risks, and illustrating how useful safety tools such as reversing cameras can be. 

Tony explained: “Safety lights and cameras tend to be fairly standard now in many of the applications we specify, which is a change from a few years ago. In addition, all sideloader cabs are raised, so there is naturally better visibility for the operator.”

Tony also answers questions at the end of the session on a range of safety issues, including how sideloaders can help end users get more productive on site, while maximising space, and doing it all safely.

MSDs

In his presentation on Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSDs), Health & Safety Executive principal ergonomist Matt Birtles highlighted the use of the MAC tool for assessing manual handling in logistics, demonstrating the Variable Manual Handling Assessment Chart (V-MAC) tool for more accurate risk assessment and prioritisation of tasks. Matt has focused on the development and application of workplace MSD risk assessments and risk reductions for HSE for 20 years. As part of this, he has developed and delivers training courses on workplace MSD risk management, leads HSE’s ergonomics consultancy services, supports HSE Policy on MSDs and has provided ergonomics guidance in most industrial sectors in the UK and internationally.

Matt explained: “We think the pandemic has increased MSDs by about 12%, as more people have worked from home, say on sofas, on beds, but actually the huge ‘pandemic’ of MSDs we were worried about as a result of vastly increased work from home has not materialised.”

Matt also offered great deal detail on better manual handling training, which is well worth a view, especially as he explained how outdated the phrase ‘back straight, bend your knees’ is. Best practice may not be as catchy but if you can switch to the more up to date - ‘slight bending of the back, hips and knees is preferable to stooping or squatting’ it will help out your workers.

On Demand

Dont forget, if you missed the original broadcast, the recording is still available for one year. Just simply follow the link below, register for the event and watch at your leisure.

For more information, visit https://bit.ly/3RbfHm4