Hi all,

We're soon to be moving premises and the design for the new VNA racking has a tunnel running through it. This is quite late in the design stages and has been released to certain people to review. I've started doing a preliminary risk assessment. 

There is currently a pedestrian tunnel that runs through the VNA racking on the plans and the reason speculated for it is to provide a faster escape in case of a fire. However, the block of racking has 2 external fire exit doors immediately adjacent such that the removal of the tunnel would increase escape time by 10 seconds at most, so I don't see this as a very strong argument.

We have a number of planning controls in place to deter pedestrians in the area (e.g. a VNA will never be assigned a putaway at the same time as a pedestrian pick, only certain VNA aisles will be doing putaways during the time of the day when picking occurs, signage, SSoW etc... However, I think the presence of a walkway offers unnecessary risk and enticement for pedestrians to walk through the centre of the aisle, would reduce pallet space, and reduce the efficiency and effectiveness of having a VNA solution (i.e. the speed at which the vehicle can move up and down the aisle) by having them slow down when they approach the tunnel. 

I can't find anything specific regs-wise that would require the tunnel, admittedly I've never worked with VNAs before and our wide aisle racking has always had tunnels (to aid pedestrian picks) but I feel the presence of the tunnel in the VNA aisles unecessarily compromises safety. 

Is there something I am missing, or that anyone else can think of? We'll be meeting the planners soon and I don't want to have missed something simple. 

Thanks, as always. 

Does this passageway have gates such that it is deliberate employee action to pass in to potentially live lanes?

Recently when we had racking relocated a passage was included to access an emergency exit that had previously been in an open traffic area. We insisted upon a one way gate as a control which the engineers messed up installating so that you had to pull the gate open rather than push to access the tunnel.

Another consideration in a high bay is how do you appropriately sign the exit without compromising vehicle and load movement? You just know that sign hanging at the side is going to get hit.

Not sure if I get your scenario properly, but when you say adjacent exits, I think you mean on the wall on the open end of the racking. The tunnel may be there not because of travel distance but to get rid of a “dead end” where someone could be trapped in the event of a fire at the open end.

Could this be a possibility of why they have included it in the design?

If I was reviewing such a thing, I might be concerned about what would actually be stored around this tunnel.

Chris