Posted By Ken Lucas
At Malcolm's request this has been moved over from the careers forum. To contact Malcolm email - malcolm.hogarth@pifoods.com



Here is one for you to ponder over.....

Picture the scene - a delivery of honey arrives for unloading, unfortunately one of the barrels has split in transit spilling the load. As a consequence the floor of the container is extremely slippery. We have to unload the vehicle using a Fork Truck taking the load from the vehicle to the top of a loading ramp with a metal grill surface.The truck eventually has difficulty gaining purchase on the floor surfaces, so much so that when the driver applies the brakes the trucks keeps moving.

Not unloading the vehicle is not really an option open to us and my concern is obviously the safety of the operatives. The difficulty is that risk assessment would conclude pretty high risk and I want to get control measure in place now.My initial response to this is perhaps to review the truck tyres and also to consider some type of matting that we could put down in this event. I am told that this sort of thing happens a couple of time a year and I want to get a contingency plan in place as soon as possible. On the principle that a problem shared is a problem halved I would be appreciative of any other ideas on this one. Also where would I look for specialst matting if I went down that route?

Posted By Sarah J Shaw
Malcolm

We hose out the back of our own wagons when we have a spillage, or if oil based use absorbent granules. Do you have a water supply to hand? Otherwise when goods from third parties arrive on site in such a condition, we refuse to unload and turn the vehicle away.

I have seen rib-linked matting which roles up, used for crossing areas like grass for lighter weight vehicles and pedestrian's. I have done a quick search in the Internet under "temporary flooring" and it picks up this types of product. Its not cheap though for only twice a year! Is there no simple cleaning which could be employed as surely the driver will have to clean his vehicle out eventually. Also if yours is only part of the load being dropped then the problem continues at other sites.

I know that this isn't your responsibility, but .....

Hope this helps

Sarah

Posted By Steve Sedgwick
Get to the route cause.
Ken
The problem will lie with either the suppliers dispatch team or the lorry driver (haulage company), and currently they are not been held to account for the problems they are causing.

Eliminate the risk altogether.

Send the vehicle back to the suppliers unloaded; let them deal with the risk and waste time and resource cleaning up.

Steve