The warehouse remains a place where accidents lurk. But where do the biggest risks arise now? On the initiative of sector organisations EVO and BMWT, a large number of organisations including BLOM Opleidingen have defined as many as ten risk hotspots. The new Healthy and Safe Warehouse Code tells you how to minimise those risks.
The Healthy and Safe Warehouse Code should give companies guidance on how to implement their safety policy in the warehouse. The government has drawn up laws and regulations requiring companies to create a healthy and safe working environment, but how exactly they should do so is not mentioned.
Sector organisations EVO and BMWT have therefore taken the initiative to create more clarity. Together with companies in the field, training institutes such as BLOM and other organisations, they have drawn up the Healthy and Safe Warehouse Code. This code provides a set of practical standards and guidelines for reducing risks at the ten most dangerous points in the warehouse:
1. Loading docks
Many risks arise around the loading dock, both on the outside and inside behind the dock. Even companies without loading docks, such as many small and medium-sized enterprises, have to consider various risks at the entrance to the warehouse such as, among others: arrival and departure of trucks, entrapment between dock levellers, collisions of trucks with people and emissions from trucks' diesel engines.
2. Aisles
In warehouse aisles, the risk of pedestrian collisions by forklifts is high. Always ask the question: are those pedestrians necessary there? Why is the pedestrian route not separated from the internal transport route? Is there even a traffic plan in place? And by the way, has any thought been given to installing pedestrian doors?
3. Scaffolding
It will not be the first time that a scaffolding is hit by a forklift truck. The consequences can be disastrous for the people, the stock and the customer who does not get his goods on time. Here, too, behaviour can play a big role: careless driving, taking a tough turn for a moment, wanting to manoeuvre too fast. As well as putting pallets away carelessly, causing them to fall out of the racking. Or climbing into the racks, resulting in falls.
4. Passage
When unexpected people enter the warehouse from another room, risks arise. Think of crossing traffic that cannot see each other, changes in light intensity and thus visibility and the lack of a pedestrian door. Not to mention people's glasses fogging up the moment people come out of a cold store.
5. Intersection
Too many accidents happen at intersections between people and material handling vehicles. A lack of good visibility or speeding is often one of the causes. This in turn is due to the lack of a traffic plan with corresponding traffic rules and enforcement policies.
6. Walk and drive paths
Often, order pickers have to walk too long distances. This is a consequence of the design of the logistics process. Warehouses could pay more attention to the negative impact on physical strain. In addition: footpaths are regularly blocked by trolleys, forklifts or pallets with loads. This forces pedestrians to swerve with a high risk of collisions with forklifts.
7. Packing and repacking stations
The location of packing and repacking stations is often such that there is a lot of traffic around them. Employees at those stations are therefore at extra risk of collisions with material handling equipment. Moreover, these are the locations where the nature of the work involves a high risk of improper physical strain. A relatively large number of temporary workers work here, who face additional risk due to unfamiliarity with the situation.
8. Entresol
There are still companies where work is carried out on entresol floors without proper fall protection. Employees then run the risk of falling off the mezzanine. Or cargo is in danger of falling down on top of an employee. An overloaded mezzanine may pose a danger of collapse. So mezzanine floors must be in good condition.
9. Battery charging station
Various risks occur in the battery charging station, such as explosions, entrapment of hands or fingers, exposure to dangerous gases or substances. Proper instruction, maintenance, order and cleanliness, attentiveness, behaviour and use of personal protective equipment can overcome many.
10. Company premises
Accidents also often happen on company premises, which could well have been prevented. The cause is the lack of a traffic plan, failure to separate different flows, lack of one-way traffic, lack of road markings and so on. Actually, it is so simple, but then why doesn't it happen?
Tom from BLOM - Internal transport expert
