Posted By tina
Here is my problem

I have a business which sells flat pack cardboard boxes. These are stacked on pallets and banded. Each pallet contains one size of box, which means the pallets are different sizes. The palletised goods of the same size are stacked one on top of another. Up to four high. On each stack the pallets and goods will all be of the same size. The company recognises that due to the light weight the palletised goods can be pushed over when on top of each other. Also (lets say 1in1000 pallet goods) some suffer from settlement, which then causes the stack to lean.

In 1998 an injury accrued in which a pallet fell on to an employee causing significant injuries. Since this time (and proseqution) they have introduced a system of frequent monitoring over the 24 hr shift, with any stack showing signs of settlement being restacked. The company stated they can not stack all goods, one pallet high due to the vast amount of stock within the warehouse. They also state that due to the various sizes of pallets which constantly change, racking would create significant H&S problems with the dramaticly different size palletised goods stored.

It has now been alleged by one employee that a pallet of goods has fallen on him. However he put the pallet back before telling any one. Another long serving member of the warehouse staff, the warehouse manager, the company sec, and two H&S consultants have stated, they have not had any pallet fall since the incident in 1998, showing their systems work.

Having viewed their accident book and other documentation I can find no evidence of any near misses or problems.

Any thoughts on how the problem, I see as unstable stacking, can be addressed. Or is this type of stacking the norm

Posted By Alec Wood
In this instance it would appear that such an accident is most definitely "reasonably forseeable"

We manufacture domestic electronics on this site with two factories. At our peak we used approximately 30k boxes per day. Ours are quite substantial so the pallets only hold about 250. We did however hold a great deal of stock, 50k or more, due to the many different models produced and had similar situations to the one you describe.

I believe that the factory which supplies our boxes now compresses the stacks to reduce settlement and increased the banding tension to address exactly this problem.

Racking can be designed to accomodate different pallet sizes, and would be the most likely solution to your problem, but their are others, like fenced aisles with retaining gates for example. You may also look to reduce your stock holding. Continuing your current stacking methods would not be acceptable.