Hi,

Please can anyone help. Each year our insurers have completed thorough examinations of our dock levellers which have been in situ for many uears, and for the last couple of years they have noted that the emergency stop buttons don't actually stop the levellers immediately, but under a controlled stop. Their reports state we need to upgrade them to immediate stop buttons (class B action).

This has a huge cost to our business though, i mean hundreds of thousands we have so many bays.

I have just taken over the role and it seems the previous H&S Manager has ignored these reports and just filed them away.

If we do a cost v benefit analysis and prove the cost outweighs the benefit would this be worth anything in the event of an EHO visit (with or without an injury)? Or because we are failing to act on an inspector's report are we in trouble?

Help please. I need to report to the Board early next week so need hard facts.

Thanks,

Sarah

Missing some info here as we don't know the exact detail of the dock leveller....but how much of a risk reduction will this change actually bring about?

What are the foreseeable conditions in which a controlled stop wouldn't prevent the occurrence or worsening of the reason for hitting the stop button? A controlled stop could be anywhere from around half a second upwards in my mind so its not clear whether this is simply to bring the kit in line with a technical standard or whether there is something more going on e.g. they know of injuries/risk and have adopted a stricter line on that basis.

Apologies if you've already done it but have you spoken with your insurers engineer directly to learn the history of the change?


Unless its a timed requirement to make on the report, there is no automatic falling foul of LOLER (as there is on using kit beyond an immediate or timed issue)...although Smurf probably hits it on the head with argument that harder to defend not taking action when so many of levellers in use - yes the costs of change go up but so does the likelihood of a relevant incident occurring across the group.
I'd still keep coming back to getting the exact details from the engineer so you can better analyse risk reduction - you might find its something pretty darn important...or equally just a compliance issue with an updated standard with no discernible benefit for your own operation.