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Posted By Katie Hoyland
Hopefully someone can help me with this query. We have recently had a near miss in one of our offices involving an employee becoming entraped in a laminating machine with his tie. Luckily no injury was sustained. Would anyone have any idea of suitable contol measures that could be estabilished to reduce any risk of a more serious incident ( We have already implemented the obvious things such as increased warning signage on the laminator, staff training , issue of tie retaining clips etc). Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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Posted By Sean Fraser
Kate,
I think you've covered it. I believe that people need to be more aware of the hazards and hence potential risks around them so they can assess danger for themselves and what actions they need to take to keep themselves safe. After all, we cannot be ther for them all the time and they are supposed to be adults. This incident is a good practical reason for mentioning it at inductions for example. However, you could look carefully at the laminator and perhaps if it is an older design you might want to use that as justification to upgrade it - newer models don't need as much heat produced (which would be my main concern).
If you consider it likely to happen again then it isn't the safety procedures that need reviewed but the recruitment ones!
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Posted By Gilly Margrave
Ban the wearing of ties? What if it had been the shredder?
Gilly
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Posted By Katie Hoyland
The use of the shredder has been the subject of a recent assessment which highlighted the potential entrapment/entanglement risk , it is now fitted with a panic button and staff training involves the instruction on the action to be taken in the event of an emergency. We try to limit the use of the shredder to non- tie wearing ( including neck scarfs)staff, of course the world has gone mad!.
Having recently spent 3 months in south asia recently maybe we could get employees to sign a disclaimer of some description.
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Posted By Sean Fraser
Kate,
Disclaimers in court don't work - you still need to prove you took all reasonable care and reduced the risk to as far as reasonably practicable.
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Posted By Bill Elliott
I would have thought that for a tie (or scarf for that matter), to be in a position to be able to be drawn in, the wearer would have to be leaning forward. If this is the case, is there any mileage in repositioning the appliance to where one would not have to stoop to use it or alternatively use it from a sitting position. There are obvious other advantages in this too in as much it is a lot kinder to the back!!
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Posted By Lewis T Roberts
How big is the lamenator?
Lew
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Posted By Katie Hoyland
its a pouchman 12.......the office standard (but potential death trap). Its 12 inches long
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Posted By Peter Batty
I am somewhat surprised that the drive motor is capable of pulling a person into a dangerous situation. Our office shredder will stop if more than 4 sheets of paper are fed into it, a tie would certainly jam it.
The laminator would be similar, they are normally synthetic drive rollers that will slip if overloaded with thick paper etc. Perhaps the unit is faulty, does the manufacturer fit slipping clutches to the drive ? and if so has the machine been checked for malfunction ?
Peter
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Posted By Andy Petrie
We had a Senior H&S Consultant do exactly the same thing at one of my previous companies. The thing to do is take the [expletive deleted] so much that he (and everyone else in the organisation that heard the story) will never do it again. It certainly worked for us.
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Posted By MarkSMark
If his tie was damaged by the laminator can he claim for a new one?
Also, in a factory there would be an emergency stop on machinery incase something like this happened. Does office equipment like laminators and shredders need e stops too?
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Posted By Michael Griffith
Hi Katie,
Have you thought of issuing staff who are likely to use the laminator with clip on ties?
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Posted By Keith Whittle
Kate, has anyone considered the use of a hot work permit? Surely you have! Remember that if you use office 'Temps' then a contractor induction is required and close personal supervision. In addition to this has anyone in your organisation undertaken manual handling assessments for water dispensers?
KW
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Posted By Katie Hoyland
Well , the laminated plastic certainly reaches a very hot temperature when it is pumped out of the machine but i had never thought of doing a hot work permit for the use of the machine, (please bear in mind i am blonde and cant think of everything). I will implement the hot work permit system ASAP now though, good advice thanks keith. I ahve looked on the Pouchman 12 website and they have precious few safety tips, i have emailed them expressing my concerns so hopefully they will be able to issue advice in the future.
I have this morning muted the idea to senior management of issuing clip on ties to male staff as part of our standard new starter induction package, this was greeted favourably at board level, i am now tasked with finding a suitable and sufficient option. So thanks for that suggestion also. Its amazing what you guys can think of , i thought i had all the bases covered with this one!! Blonde again i guess.!!
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Posted By Mike Craven
What hair I have left is dark brown with more than a couple of grey bits - although being married to a blonde may have an effect - but I have to confess that I would never in a milion years have thought of issuing a hot work permit to allow someone to use a laminating machine? Having said that, on introducing a permit to work system at a recent previous employment, I received some puzzled looks from the two guys that wanted to have one of their (regular) looks on the roof of the sixth floor of one of our buildings when I suuggested that a permit might be necessary!!
Mike
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Posted By Katie Hoyland
Keith,
When you say water dispensers , i assume you mean office water chillers which we use to provide an adequate source of potable water. Do you mean that we should be doing some kind of daily analysis of the quality of the water? such as a PH , NH4 , Ni etc test? More information required for this one i think.
katie
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Posted By Hilary Charlton
I too am blonde and would never have thought of a hot work permit for using a laminating machine - especially one of the tiddly little office type ones - my word we must be casting around looking for things to make us busy. By the same token, a guy gets his tie stuck in the laminator, a 12" laminator is not going to drag a fully grown man into it and cover him in plastic - with the best will in the world he will have plenty of time to unplug the machine, walk over to a desk and cut the end of his tie off. A waste of a good tie I grant and a warning notice may be required but this really is as far as is reasonably practicable.
As for shredders - about 12 years ago we had a guy who shredded his tie in a small office shredder - we laughed because it was very very funny. It has not happened since and the likelihood of it happening are remote enough not to give rise to major concern.
I would do as you have done, put a notice on it, recommend tie clips and warn people but that's enough - this really is a very very unlikely thing to ever happen again and if it did it is hardly life threatening.
Hilary
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Posted By Neil Tonge
must be a wind up?!?
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Posted By Ron Hunter
Is this entire thread one big wind up or what?
Sensible positioning of the laminator - yes.
Readily accessible switch on side of laminator/at wall socket - yes.
A pair of scissors handy somewhere in the office (although I'm sure you could drag your tie back out of the average office laminator once you'd switched it off) - yes.
As for the rest (and particularly hot work permits!) forget it - are you people being serious?!!!!(some of you I suspect not!)
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Posted By Keith Whittle
Kate, the water information I refered to was safe lifting techniques, however if the water is stored for longer than 6 weeks the the eptochyriliam lactota bactia may show.
Sorry for other people confusing you with regards to hot work permits, but a colleague of mine was issued with an improvement notice for failures in relation to suitable distance guarding. (14inch laminator at chest height).
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Posted By Stuart Nagle
Interesting.
This also opens the can or worms entitled 'one rule for females another for males' in respect of dress in the office.
In general it is my personal opinion that males being required to wear ties in offices (particularly if in non-client facing roles or not attending meetings with customers etc) is an un-nessarsary hangover from a bygone age.
I am 'familiar' myself with the phrase 'Your looking very casual today' as applied to a male when not wearing a tie in the office, whilst at the same time observing females in the office in various types of dress (and - dare I say it! almost undress) that is never commented upon, or if so, in a 'different' manner reagrdless of the suitability of their dress or otherwise...
I would be interested in the comments of others on this issue. (Please note that these comments are not intended to be sexist or portray sexism - although some may have alternative views at the simple mention of this somewhat contentious issue) but a serious attempt to gauge opinion on dress suitability./dress code in todays office environment.
Regards...
Stuart
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Posted By Adam Jackson
Keith - have you got any more information on that improvement note? I'm with others that the whole no-tie and permit things are huge overkill but it would be interesting to know the detail of the note and the situation it pertained to. Maybe there's a risk aspect on there I've not considered which would make this a reasonable corrective action.
As for your workplace Stuart. I work with burly poultry farmers while you work in a place where femal dress-code involves "partial undress". Any chance you want to swap?
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Posted By Paul Leadbetter
While I think a dress code has some validity for staff who meet the public or clients, I am all for informality. I am self-employed so jeans and tee shirt are my usual garb at home but I wear a collar and tie or even a suit when visiting clients or prospective clients. After all, 'you don't get a second chance to make a good first impression'.
Paul
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Posted By Gilly Margrave
The whole dress code issue is a bit up in the air at the moment. The case of Department for Work and Pensions v Thompson (EAT) which revolved around gender discriminatory dress codes was referred back to a different tribunal. There are about 7000 other ETs pending on the same subject. Think I'll leave this one to the lawyers.
Gilly
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Posted By Katie Hoyland
gilly
speak for yourself..... my dress is never up in the air.
x
katie
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Posted By Gilly Margrave
Hi Katie,
Obviously a shortage of Guinness and Baked Beans. Though from your posting on the loo paper thread I'm not too sure!
Gilly
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Posted By Katie Hoyland
sometimes life just gets too serious, sorry i'm in one of those moods!
x
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