Posted By wormeye I have a manual handling puzzle that I need to sort out. My company has approximately 4 containers a day come from the far east.We employee a 2 man team to handball various boxes of differing weights from the back of the container to a pallet that is close to the operation. This process takes a couple of hours until the container is empty.Employees are given a break every 5 minutes and are not under pressure to complete the task quickly. My problem is that the boxes are tightly packed to roof level within the container and the only way to get them out is to collapse the stock by removing boxes at lower levels. The risk therefore is falling boxes. The business cannot afford to palletise loads as we would lose approximately a third of container space. Has anybody come across this problem? Also I need to get adequate lighting into the back of the container during unloading, especially when the lads work their way into the container as they empty it, can anybody recommend a company that could provide lighting solutions for the back of containers.

Posted By Steve Kirk If you are using a loading bay then it is easy enough to get flexible lighting installed on the bay wall that can be adjusted as needed to give vision inside the container, If not then a quick internet search for portable lighting should do the trick. As for the problem of handballing the boxes, you will probably find that they were loaded from pallets using a slipmat system (plastic sheets underneath the boxes) there are attatchments available for flts (try searching for clamp trucks), these can be expensive, so it may be that you have to opt for a safe system of work, i.e hardhats and unloading from the top (although it may take longer it is possible, try not to rely on collapsing the materials and making a run for it.

Posted By Merv Newman What about something (safe) for them to stand on to reach the top boxes then maybe a chute to drop the boxes to a lower level where someone else can put them on to pallets ? Just first thoughts. Step ladder on wheels ? (brakes and guard rails etc) Unpick from the top-centre, going down in a V and someone under the thing they stand on can unpick the lower levels, also working from centre to sides. Not an expert in this, but a couple of times have had to organise unloading of collapsed loads. Have photos somewhere of unloading of thousands of collapsed glass jars. Does not make for a fun day out. Merv