Sellafield wins inaugural Safe Site Award
20th February, 2008
Report from FLTA Awards for Excellence 2008
The first winner of the new Fork Lift Truck Association Safe Site Award is…
Sellafield Limited.
The announcement was made in front of a packed audience at the FLTA Awards for Excellence 2008 event, held at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole on 9th February. Recognised as the materials handling industry’s ultimate accolades, the FLTA Awards – or ‘Archies’, as the solid brass sculptures of Archimedes are affectionately known – are given out each year to reward and encourage achievement in raising industry standards.
“This special Award has been introduced to acknowledge the strenuous efforts made by truck users to make their working environment a safer place,“ explains FLTA Chief Executive David Ellison.
“In the case of Sellafield, the work site is huge, the fork lifts are many and varied, and the lifting operations amount to hundreds of thousands each year. In response to a number of ‘near misses’ in 2006, the company acted decisively in implementing an improvement plan to ensure high standards in training of supervisors, assessment of operators and overall management of traffic.”
He adds: “As well as making its own site safer, Sellafield was generous enough to share its experiences at the FLTA’s national Safety Conference… thereby making a great contribution to the spread of best practice. That is the spirit of our Safe Site Award… and Sellafield is a very deserving first winner.”
Over the last two years the number of incidents with the potential for injury has dropped from an average four per month to just one in six months. Behind that dramatic improvement has been a lot of hard work by the Maintenance Authority and Principal Lifting Engineer Mike Palmer, the Safety Adviser Kevin Stilling and the Fork Lift Teams themselves.
Mike Palmer says: “I was asked to support and advise on fork lift truck operations because of my role in Engineering Operations Support as Maintenance Authority and Principal Lifting Engineer, and obviously fork lifts – being used for lifting – are a key part of my responsibility.
“As well as the risk of injury from incidents, there was also the potential for equipment to be damaged. We felt that the situation was unacceptable and we were determined to make improvements.
“One of the main things we did to bring about change was to try and raise awareness. The fork lift operators needed to take greater ownership, and not to be afraid to challenge if conditions or equipment were not right to do certain jobs. We wanted the improvements to come from the teams… and they have delivered brilliantly.
“There are two main elements to fork lift training: there is the basic training, where you learn how to operate a truck, or to know which lever does what; and then there is the familiarisation element, which deals much more with the conditions of the environment you are working in – and in our case this is often very complex.
“We found that the second part was weak in many areas, and that was something that we focused on improving. It wasn’t that standards were very low, but more that they had gradually become relaxed over a number of years.
“We didn’t make huge changes, but slowly, and steadily, standards have continued to improve from where we were. We had just one incident with potential for injury between July and December 2007, which is quite a turnaround. There has been a massive improvement and the team are all justifiably proud of their achievements.
“Most of our good practice was led by Kevin Stilling, Les Martin and the Waste Management Fork Lift Team. They implemented methods that the rest of the site adopted. The Waste Group Team became a member of the Fork Lift Truck Association, from which they were able to gather and share even more ideas for good practice.
“We are delighted to receive this Award. It reflects the hard work and dedication of all the fork lift truck drivers and banksmen on site over the last couple of years. As another by-product of the improvement work, the Waste Management Fork Lift Team held a tough fork lift truck driver/banksman competition in September 2007 – and that event is to be repeated in 2008, with entrants from all over the Sellafield site.”
The FLTA is already looking for nominations for next year’s Safe Site Award. If your organisation has made significant improvements to safety through changes to its site design, conditions or practices, the FLTA would like to hear from you. You can email mail@fork-truck.org.uk or call 01256 381441.
Other Awards
The Safety Award for 2008 was won by Doosan, whose simple but very effective innovation has been to build a horn into the new rear grab bar on its fork lift trucks. While reversing, the driver holds on to the grab bar for extra comfort and support and is able to sound an instant warning when necessary.
Three other Awards, besides Safety, were decided by an open vote within the materials handling community. These were won by STILL (Environment), Crown (Ergonomics) and Komatsu (Innovation). Details of their products – and those of all finalists – can be viewed on the FLTA website (go to www.fork-truck.org.uk/awards).
Two Awards went to tyre manufacturers: Watts Industrial Tyre Services took the Archie for Supplier of the Year, while Continental Tyre Group received the Design Achievement Archie for its innovative CSEasy tyre which can be fitted using nothing but a simple torque wrench. Unusually, there were two winners of the Apprentice of the year Award: Ben Duff of Jungheinrich and Joseph Turner of Toyota. The Employee of the Year Award reflected the warm respect felt by colleagues and customers towards Ian Stone of Windsor Engineering in Hull.
“Awards 2008 has been another resounding success,” the FLTA’s David Ellison reflects. “We hope that by shining the spotlight on all that is best in materials handling we will have helped to encourage continued improvement in standards. Importantly, the Awards help ensure that truck users get to know that these developments are being made. Our thanks go to the many sponsors, partners and supporters who have made this possible.”
The first winner of the new Fork Lift Truck Association Safe Site Award is…
Sellafield Limited.
The announcement was made in front of a packed audience at the FLTA Awards for Excellence 2008 event, held at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole on 9th February. Recognised as the materials handling industry’s ultimate accolades, the FLTA Awards – or ‘Archies’, as the solid brass sculptures of Archimedes are affectionately known – are given out each year to reward and encourage achievement in raising industry standards.
“This special Award has been introduced to acknowledge the strenuous efforts made by truck users to make their working environment a safer place,“ explains FLTA Chief Executive David Ellison.
“In the case of Sellafield, the work site is huge, the fork lifts are many and varied, and the lifting operations amount to hundreds of thousands each year. In response to a number of ‘near misses’ in 2006, the company acted decisively in implementing an improvement plan to ensure high standards in training of supervisors, assessment of operators and overall management of traffic.”
He adds: “As well as making its own site safer, Sellafield was generous enough to share its experiences at the FLTA’s national Safety Conference… thereby making a great contribution to the spread of best practice. That is the spirit of our Safe Site Award… and Sellafield is a very deserving first winner.”
Over the last two years the number of incidents with the potential for injury has dropped from an average four per month to just one in six months. Behind that dramatic improvement has been a lot of hard work by the Maintenance Authority and Principal Lifting Engineer Mike Palmer, the Safety Adviser Kevin Stilling and the Fork Lift Teams themselves.
Mike Palmer says: “I was asked to support and advise on fork lift truck operations because of my role in Engineering Operations Support as Maintenance Authority and Principal Lifting Engineer, and obviously fork lifts – being used for lifting – are a key part of my responsibility.
“As well as the risk of injury from incidents, there was also the potential for equipment to be damaged. We felt that the situation was unacceptable and we were determined to make improvements.
“One of the main things we did to bring about change was to try and raise awareness. The fork lift operators needed to take greater ownership, and not to be afraid to challenge if conditions or equipment were not right to do certain jobs. We wanted the improvements to come from the teams… and they have delivered brilliantly.
“There are two main elements to fork lift training: there is the basic training, where you learn how to operate a truck, or to know which lever does what; and then there is the familiarisation element, which deals much more with the conditions of the environment you are working in – and in our case this is often very complex.
“We found that the second part was weak in many areas, and that was something that we focused on improving. It wasn’t that standards were very low, but more that they had gradually become relaxed over a number of years.
“We didn’t make huge changes, but slowly, and steadily, standards have continued to improve from where we were. We had just one incident with potential for injury between July and December 2007, which is quite a turnaround. There has been a massive improvement and the team are all justifiably proud of their achievements.
“Most of our good practice was led by Kevin Stilling, Les Martin and the Waste Management Fork Lift Team. They implemented methods that the rest of the site adopted. The Waste Group Team became a member of the Fork Lift Truck Association, from which they were able to gather and share even more ideas for good practice.
“We are delighted to receive this Award. It reflects the hard work and dedication of all the fork lift truck drivers and banksmen on site over the last couple of years. As another by-product of the improvement work, the Waste Management Fork Lift Team held a tough fork lift truck driver/banksman competition in September 2007 – and that event is to be repeated in 2008, with entrants from all over the Sellafield site.”
The FLTA is already looking for nominations for next year’s Safe Site Award. If your organisation has made significant improvements to safety through changes to its site design, conditions or practices, the FLTA would like to hear from you. You can email mail@fork-truck.org.uk or call 01256 381441.
Other Awards
The Safety Award for 2008 was won by Doosan, whose simple but very effective innovation has been to build a horn into the new rear grab bar on its fork lift trucks. While reversing, the driver holds on to the grab bar for extra comfort and support and is able to sound an instant warning when necessary.
Three other Awards, besides Safety, were decided by an open vote within the materials handling community. These were won by STILL (Environment), Crown (Ergonomics) and Komatsu (Innovation). Details of their products – and those of all finalists – can be viewed on the FLTA website (go to www.fork-truck.org.uk/awards).
Two Awards went to tyre manufacturers: Watts Industrial Tyre Services took the Archie for Supplier of the Year, while Continental Tyre Group received the Design Achievement Archie for its innovative CSEasy tyre which can be fitted using nothing but a simple torque wrench. Unusually, there were two winners of the Apprentice of the year Award: Ben Duff of Jungheinrich and Joseph Turner of Toyota. The Employee of the Year Award reflected the warm respect felt by colleagues and customers towards Ian Stone of Windsor Engineering in Hull.
“Awards 2008 has been another resounding success,” the FLTA’s David Ellison reflects. “We hope that by shining the spotlight on all that is best in materials handling we will have helped to encourage continued improvement in standards. Importantly, the Awards help ensure that truck users get to know that these developments are being made. Our thanks go to the many sponsors, partners and supporters who have made this possible.”