Manpower Versus Mechanics
Whether it’s pulling, pushing, lifting or lowering, it’s no longer sensible (or even legal, in some cases) to expect your workforce to take the strain.
The Health and Safety Executive has had its campaign spotlight focused firmly on manual handling for some time – not least because musculoskeletal disorders remain the most common occupational illness in the UK and manual handling injuries play a contributory role. Manual handling equipment is a commonly-used term, but in fact is something of a misnomer. It is, after all, mechanical handling equipment that, when installed, removes the need for manual handling. Nonetheless, manual handling equipment it is, and, whether prompted by the lure of greater efficiency or the threat of future litigation, businesses are buying more and more of this kit each year.
MasterMover is one such equipment supplier that’s been enjoying significant success in recent years. Its products – tug units, in the main – are designed and manufactured at its factory in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, and used in diverse applications, from large automotive plants to small food and drink manufacturers. Irrespective of sector, customers usually approach the firm for one of two reasons, reckons Hugh Freer, sales and marketing manager. “The first group is focusing on staff welfare and morale, so they are looking for safer and easier ways to handle goods. Their whole approach is ‘safetyfirst’ and they risk assess each operation and task. Others are more reactive: they may approach us because they’ve been asked to by their staff, because there has been a nearmiss or, worse still, an actual incident.”
Profine UK contacted Mastermover earlier this year to solve a manual handling problem and boost storage efficiency. The company manufactures plastic profiles for windows and doors, and distributes them in the UK from its site in Lichfield, Staffordshire. Profine needed a solution for moving products around at the new 55,000ft2 facility, as Stefan Seidel, operations manager, explains: “It was vital to have facilities where we could store our stillages in a more efficient way. But we then obviously needed some sort of tow truck to make the best use of them. We looked at a number of solutions and suppliers, before choosing MasterMover. We were not only given a clever solution that worked, but also they were prepared to customise the equipment for our needs.”
By using a MasterTug, now one person can pull out an extruded profile stacked in stillages six high on rollers weighing 6.5 tonnes. Using this method, the amount of product that can be stored in the warehouse is far greater without needing to leave space for a conventional forklift. Colin Judson works at the Lichfield site: he says the tug makes his job much easier. “Before, we needed four people to move the stillages – now I can do it on my own.”
The MasterTug range comprises 11 models, and can be used to pull or push any wheeled or semi-wheeled loads weighing from 50kg up to 30 tonnes. The machine transfers weight from the load using a manual or hydraulic mast to gain the necessary traction with a range of power capabilities. Aside from tug units, other mechanical alternatives to manual handling include scissor lifts, lifting tables, trolleys, hoists, and much more.
Some of this equipment calls for a more permanent installation than others – conveyors are one example – but flexibility is always a useful attribute. Flexible conveying systems can be a real boon if manual handling tasks are becoming onerous. PowerFlex, for example, is a powered, expandable roller conveyor from Best Conveyors which can be used in various applications. Best’s Paul Byers cites the example of TNT Express, the parcels handling division of TNT Group, which has installed the PowerFlex equipment. In one area, for example, the equipment is used to extend into delivery vehicles to help with unloading goods and transporting them direct to a weighing and barcoding area on a fixed conveyor. From the other end of the fixed conveyor, another Powerflex unit takes the parcels out to trailers for onward despatch – manual handling has been minimised at the depot, overall sorting time was cut by 30 minutes per shift and a 12% increase in consignment volume was accommodated without any extra manpower. “Manual handling legislation has compelled many companies to adopt new techniques to relieve the operative of strenuous tasks – and in doing so, these new methods have resulted in enhanced productivity,” says Byers.
The possibilities for a manufacturing environment are clear – either for the shopfloor or the warehouse. The units are on rugged castors, so they can be easily and quickly relocated where necessary. They can also be compacted to a third of their size for easy storage and manoeuvrability.
Of course, education plays a vital role in the reduction of risk for manual handling activities. There’s no substitute for training and the training providers, perhaps not surprisingly, are keen to extol the virtues – and values – of appropriate training programmes. Clive James is a senior training officer: he administers and develops a range of health and safety courses offered by an organisation that perhaps is better known for its volunteers and ambulances at public events – St John Ambulance. St John Ambulance is the country’s leading provider of first aid training, yet it also offers wider health and safety training at its network of sites throughout England and Wales (and via St Andrew’s Ambulance service in Scotland). “Few people realise we offer a full range of health and safety courses,” admits James. “These include courses for fire warden training, manual handling and accredited training for organisations such as IOSH and the British Safety Council.”
The courses offered by St John Ambulance can either be scheduled (public) courses, or they can be held on site. “Manufacturers form a key part of our customer base; on a scheduled course with, say, 12 participants, typically there would be at least two or three from the manufacturing sector,” says James. With the huge range of manual handling equipment available on the market, does he think some employers take the view that they have a choice to either offer training or to install kit to remove that activity? “Training should never be considered an alternative to buying equipment,” says James. “Training is something that employers provide for staff if they feel there is a risk in anything they do.” That goes hand in hand with manual handling equipment, he says, “much of which can be fairly inexpensive but highly effective”. Indeed, the same can be said of the manual handling training on offer, which James points out can cost as little as £50-£60 a person for a half-day course – “even less if we hold it at the manufacturer’s site”. The difficulty with manual handling as a subject, he says, is that few people realise its true complexity. “Most think that manual handling is lifting a heavy item. But it’s rarely one single lift that will cause an injury, it’s repetitive movements that usually do the damage, particularly if that movement involves twisting or bending.”
Clearly heavy weights cannot – and should not – be lifted by manpower alone. But as James points out, the frequency of the movement is often the main contributor, not the weight: pushing an item from one workstation to another, for example, could pose a risk, even though no lifting is involved. James says courses such as those offered by St John Ambulance and other training providers go a long way to raising awareness of the real risks of manual handling, though he cautions employers to look carefully at course content: “I’ve seen some so-called manual handling courses offered on the internet which consist of nothing more than a few slides and multiple choice questions.
Once the right answers have been given, the user prints off a certificate. How can that really count as knowledge for the individual? We try to make the course as relevant as possible to the participants – even on a scheduled public course, we ask each delegate to consider their own working environment and discuss issues they may face.” And if the course is customised and held on a customer’s site, so much the better. Good health and safety management is not only about making sure a single serious incident doesn’t occur: “Remember, some long-term musculoskeletal disorders can leave workers disabled,” warns James. Indeed, let’s remind ourselves: it’s repetition that’s often the culprit, not weight.
Right training
Barloworld Handling is perhaps best known for its role as sole UK distributor for Hyster forklift trucks, but it also offers other lifting and handling equipment – and it can provide an independent risk assessment service and training. Ian Marshall is Barloworld’s national training manager and he says the right type of training is vital if accidents or injuries are to be avoided: “Employers have to be realistic in their approach to educating the workforce. It’s not just about showing them how to lift a box properly, employees have to understand all the variables and why correct manual handling is important,” he adds. “We believe equipment is secondary to training, purely because the staff have to understand the value in using the equipment.” After all, we all know the shortcuts we can take to ensure a job is done quickly.
This point is echoed by Kate Steventon, an assistant solicitor at Weightmans, a UK law firm. Based at the Birmingham head office, Steventon works in one of two workplace safety departments. She says that cases can often arise where generic handling training was given at induction, but the employee was not subsequently monitored and not shown how the training should be applied to their own role. “Quite often we see people who say they had some training, they were shown to lift boxes by bending at the knees, for example, but then they tell us ‘I don’t lift boxes so I didn’t really know how that instruction applied to me’. Employers must have a clear system of work that everyone follows and, importantly, everyone knows they have to follow. Training is not just ‘how’, it’s also ‘when’. If there is work equipment and it’s mandatory to use it, then everyone should be using it and they should know what it’s there for. Documenting procedures should help with this.”
Time for action
Another problem she has witnessed in the course of her work is employers paying lip service to the whole idea of risk assessments. “Risk assessments may well be carried out but they are not always followed up. They must be reviewed regularly and kept up to date,” she cautions. In terms of manual handling equipment available, it’s important for employers to keep abreast of developments and new technology: “It’s not enough to say ‘we reviewed this task some time ago and we didn’t know there was this new type of trolley that could eliminate the need for people to push/pull’ and so on,” she says. “The situation must be regularly reviewed to see if there are any further ways to remove or minimise risk.” Clearly, no company is expected to purchase equipment the minute it’s launched on the market;
courts will take financial constraints into account to a certain degree, she says, but they will also look at the situation across that particular industry and will expect that business to have adopted appropriate equipment and measures. “In this type of claim, it’s what is ‘reasonably practicable’. Courts don’t expect the business to have bought and installed every single piece of kit that’s available, but they do expect employers to keep abreast of what’s on offer.”
Whatever the size or sector, Steventon’s advice is the same. First, look at which tasks involve manual handling. Secondly, ascertain the risk posed by those tasks, whether there’s any risk of injury and the likely severity. Can the risk be reduced or eliminated? Sometimes, the task can be altered slightly which will avoid the need for manual handling altogether. And then training should be given, where possible specific for the role or task: make sure this is documented and evidenced with certificates and training records. This should be updated regularly and employees monitored to ensure they are carrying out tasks in the correct way. “We’ve seen claims where yes, the individual was given training but that was ten years ago; since then, they’ve been doing the task this way and no-one has ever told them this was wrong. It’s becoming increasingly important for employers to monitor, to identify any problems and, if necessary, to retrain.” It’s not a defence to tick a box on a training form and file it away. Nor is it necessarily the case that buying the latest piece of kit will keep your workforce safe. A combination of the two is what’s needed to secure minimum risk and maximum productivity.
View related sectors: Manufacturing and Assembly, Steel and fabrication