Hi norton11, the cause of the products falling would be my first concern. Address these and the risk is removed. If there is still any likelihood of a falling item, is there any visual indication that this is impending? A formal pre-enter inspection process may address this although if the lighting levels are very low then a high powered lantern may be of use. How often is "some instances"? This suggests to me that this is an infrequent event even in a large warehouse. Compound this frequency with the low personnel numbers and the risk of being hit is likely to be approaching negligible. As previous threads have recently highlighted, protecting the individual (PPE etc) should be much lower in priority than removing the exposure. A hard hat may be OK for deflecting a roof tile, but with "quite heavy" items even a suit of armour may not suffice.

Presumably the crane is isolated during the maintenance operation with access to safety gates, perhaps using a trapped key system. In which case, can we assume that it is not the crane and its support mechanism knocking the items off? Is this some form of tilt racking where the product is fed in by the crane from the aisle and then decends by gravity / rollers to the pick operatives? Without the need to make wholesale changes to the aisle side racking to catch any falls, could you look instead at a mobile safety cage for the maintenance fitters to use? This could be mounted onto the crane rails (if that is the system used) and incorporate a heavy duty demoltion type cage above the worker. They would then wheel the cage to the work area and carry out the work within its confines. This solution does however require all the maintenance work be carried out at ground level though. No use if something snags or fails 20 metres up. The other alternative would be to use a man up reach truck operating in the aisle. This provides overhead protection and allows for work at height. There may however by compatibility problems if the crane travels on rails. Not so bad if the crane is wheeled and guided by buried wire.