Rank: Forum user
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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.
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Rank: Super forum user
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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.
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![thanks](/Themes/iosh2/heart_small.png) 2 users thanked Roundtuit for this useful post.
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Rank: Super forum user
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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.
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![thanks](/Themes/iosh2/heart_small.png) 2 users thanked Roundtuit for this useful post.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Rank: Super forum user
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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
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