There is a danger in every corner, especially in the
warehouse. People are often considered the biggest source of risk: without
people no accidents, is the idea. The question is whether that idea is entirely correct.
Safety experts Frans Hardus and Willem Stehouwer argue during the Day of
the Warehouse for a different perspective: teach people to think, make them aware
of the risks and give them responsibility to report dangerous situations immediately
report them.
Frans Hardus begins his workshop at the Day of the
Warehouse with a confrontational question. "What do you look at when you walk through the
warehouse to check the state of the racking? Right, at the
front. That's what almost everyone does. Hardly anyone looks at the
back," states the safety specialist, who is asked at home and abroad
asked to inspect warehouse racking.
During his inspections, Hardus always takes a
camera with him. In the 'Hidden defects' workshop, he shows a large number of
recent photos with a large common denominator: at the front, sometimes little seems to be
going on, but when you see the back, you are shocked. Think of
uprights that are rusted through or torn away from the floor slab, locking pins that are
missing or beams that have not been mounted properly and therefore lose their load-bearing capacity.
lose bearing capacity. "Forklift drivers tend to put pallets too far back
to the back. This means that the rear girders are often loaded more heavily than
the previous ones, but hardly anyone notices," Hardus said.
Angels in the warehouse
One photo shows a girder securely bolted
to the uprights. Too firmly, judges Hardus. "Anyone who with their forks
accidentally lifts the girder, pulling the whole rack out of the floor. How dare
people still work here? There must be a lot of angels flying around in our warehouses.
lots of angels flying around. For some inexplicable reason, collapses of
racks always happen in the evening, at night, on weekends or during holidays, at
times when no one is working."
For many defects, Hardus does have an explanation.
Think of a driver whose forklift truck turns out too early and hits a upright.
a upright. Or a driver who puts a pallet away with forward-leaning forks and hits the
rear girder. "It can't be helped that these drivers must
feel. How do we get these people to report it when they hit something? And
look at this picture. Here, someone tried to use a hammer and chisel to take a kink
out of a upright. As if the load-bearing capacity has not been reduced by that
kink. What does such a person want to achieve?"
Hole cheese model
One floor up in the premises of
shippers' organisation EVO, the setting for the Warehouse Day, Willem
Stehouwer holds a workshop on safety around battery charging stations. He starts with
the example of an accident, where a sequence of events led
led to an exploding traction battery. "I am an avid viewer of the
TV programme Air Chash Investigation. From that, too, it is repeatedly shown that an
accident often has multiple causes," Stehouwer said.
He introduces the hole cheese model, developed
by English psychologist Reason, and applies it to battery charging stations. This
model shows that many accidents occur because at different levels
failure: the organisation is not professional enough, the operation is
too complex, the equipment is no good, procedures are not followed, etc.
"This model shows that personnel are the last line of defence."
Taking responsibility
Stehouwer advocates - as Hardus in fact does -
to see warehouse employees not just as a risk, but as an
'asset' that can improve safety. A warehouse in which no mistakes
made and no risks exist is, after all, an illusion. Therefore, make sure that
employees are aware of those risks, are forced to think about
thinking in all the actions they perform and spot dangers. "People are
an asset, provided they are given the opportunity to take responsibility. If they don't
know what is happening, they pose a risk."
Marcel te Lindert - journalist logistics and supply chain
