Enhance Workplace Safety with Brandsafe’s Comprehensive Site Safety Audits
At Brandsafe, we recognise the crucial need for maintaining a secure workplace. Our comprehensive Site Safety Audits are tailored to ensure that all installed safety measures not only continue to perform effectively but also comply with stringent safety standards. Designed to pre-emptively identify and mitigate potential hazards, these audits are instrumental in fostering a safer work environment and enhancing operational safety for all employees. Our Site Safety Audit is methodically structured into three phases: 'Inspect', 'Report', and 'Recommend'. This systematic approach ensures comprehensive evaluation and sustained compliance with safety standards.
Building on this commitment to workplace safety, our audits encompass a thorough examination of existing protocols and equipment. By integrating both a visual and functional assessment of safety barriers, signage, and emergency access points, we ensure that every aspect of your safety infrastructure is up to date and functioning as intended. Our expert auditors focus on critical areas that may be overlooked during regular operations, providing you with insights and actionable data that drive continuous safety improvements.
Inspect
The initial phase of our Site Safety Audit involves a comprehensive on-site inspection led by our seasoned safety specialists. This inspection includes a detailed examination of each installed safety feature—ranging from Polymer Barriers and Bollards to Line Markings—to evaluate their current condition and functionality. Our experts diligently look for any signs of deterioration, damage, or other concerns that could potentially compromise safety. Employing exhaustive checklists and best-in-class practices, we guarantee a meticulous assessment with no detail overlooked.
Report
After the inspection, a comprehensive pictorial report is compiled to provide a detailed overview of the current state of your safety installations. The report encompasses photographs of each inspected item, annotations on any observed defects or conditions, and a comprehensive assessment of the safety environment. This documentation is essential for monitoring the longevity and effectiveness of safety solutions and serves as a vital record for compliance purposes.
Recommend
Based on the findings from our inspection and the insights gathered from the report, we provide tailored recommendations to address any identified issues. Whether it’s replacing worn-out materials, updating outdated installations, or suggesting additional safety measures, our recommendations are designed to enhance safety and compliance with the latest industry standards. We also offer guidance on best practices for maintenance to prolong the life of your safety solutions.
Schedule Your Health and Safety Audit Today
Ensure your safety measures meet the highest standards. Contact us now to schedule your free annual product inspection. We offer flexible scheduling to seamlessly accommodate your operations. Don't miss the opportunity to enhance your workplace safety—book your audit today.
The Critical Importance of Health and Safety Audits
Impact of Workplace Accidents
Workplace accidents and injuries significantly impact businesses, leading to lost productivity, increased downtime, and long-term health issues for employees. They also expose companies to legal and financial risks. Statistics from the Health and Safety Executive reveal that annually around 50 people die and over 5,000 are injured in workplace transport accidents in the UK, highlighting the urgent need for effective safety measures.
Adhering to PAS 13 Standards
The PAS 13 standard, developed by the British Standards Institution in collaboration with the Health and Safety Executive and industry experts, offers a robust framework for traffic management and safety barrier implementation in industrial settings. It provides comprehensive guidelines on the specifications, placement, and testing of safety barriers to exceed safety requirements and protect both personnel and infrastructure.
Three-Phase Safety Audit Process
Following PAS 13 guidelines, our auditing process is structured into three phases: inspect, report, and recommend. The initial inspection identifies both current and potential safety concerns, critically assessing the impact resistance, dimensions, and placement of safety solutions. Detailed testing is included to ensure maximum protection.
In the report phase, findings are detailed in a comprehensive document that tracks the effectiveness of installed safety measures and ensures compliance with safety regulations. The final phase involves providing tailored recommendations for necessary improvements or updates to meet the latest safety standards, ensuring ongoing protection for personnel and infrastructure.
Legal Compliance and Regular Audits
Under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, UK employers are mandated to ensure the health, safety, and welfare of their employees, which includes regular risk assessments and audits. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 further require that risks be systematically assessed and managed. Regular safety audits are crucial in warehouse and industrial environments where the risk of accidents involving heavy machinery and large volumes of goods is high. These audits are essential not only for compliance with standards like PAS 13 but also for enhancing operational efficiency and employee safety.
The Value and Necessity of Regular Safety Audits
Regular health and safety audits are essential for safeguarding the workforce and maintaining efficient, compliant operations. While not always legally mandated, these audits are strongly recommended as part of best practices. Neglecting safety equipment checks and health and safety training can lead to severe legal repercussions if incidents occur.
Safety audits examine every element of workplace safety infrastructure, from barrier stability to signage visibility. Implementing insights from these audits enhances safety, reduces downtime, and prevents costly accidents, boosting operational efficiency and employee morale while protecting the company's reputation.
Partnering with Brandsafe
Brandsafe is dedicated to collaborating with you to conduct these audits, ensuring that your safety measures meet both compliance standards and are optimised for your specific operational needs. By scheduling your next health and safety audit with us, you are taking a significant step towards mitigating accidents and enhancing a culture of safety within your organisation.
Take Proactive Steps with Brandsafe Audits
Reach out to Brandsafe today to discover how our comprehensive safety audits can safeguard your most valuable asset—your workforce. Protecting your team not only complies with legal standards but also builds a foundation for a resilient and efficient operational environment.
Conclusion
Regular health and safety audits are essential for any business committed to the safety of its workforce and to maintaining a legally compliant operation. By following best practices and implementing regular audits, you ensure the highest safety outcomes, effectively protecting both people and assets. Contact Brandsafe now to schedule your audit and secure a safer tomorrow for your business.
IWS Group Announces Leadership Changes: Welcoming New Divisional Managing Director
In an exciting development, IWS Group is pleased to announce the appointment of Gary Coleman as the new Divisional Managing Director for both Brandsafe and Rack Group, effective June 12, 2024. This strategic move comes as part of an ongoing review of IWS Group’s operating structure.
Gary brings a wealth of experience with him to this new role, having spent over 18 years in the industrial sector, primarily with NENE Warehouse Solutions. During his tenure at NENE, Gary held several key positions, including National Account Manager and Managing Director, demonstrating his expertise and leadership capabilities.
Gary expressed his enthusiasm for the new role, stating, “I am thrilled to join the talented team at IWS Group. Together, we will work towards driving the business forward, enhancing our service offerings, and ensuring we provide exceptional value to our customers. I look forward to contributing to the growth and success of Rack Group and Brandsafe and am excited about the opportunities ahead.”
In conjunction with this appointment, Susy Keating has decided to step down from her role at Brandsafe after a decade of dedicated service. Susy’s contributions have been instrumental in the growth and success of Brandsafe, and her decision to leave was made with careful consideration. Susy will remain with the company until the end of July, ensuring a smooth transition by working closely with Gary and the team.
“Over the past 10 years, Brandsafe has been a significant part of Susy’s professional journey. Her commitment and dedication have been invaluable to both Brandsafe and IWS Group,” said Richard Harden, CEO of IWS Group. “We thank Susy for her remarkable service and wish her all the best in her future endeavours.”
The operational, sales, installation, and finance structures within Brandsafe and Rack Group will remain unchanged, ensuring continuity and stability for our clients and partners.
Please join us in welcoming Gary Coleman to IWS Group. We are confident that his extensive experience and leadership skills will drive continued success for both Brandsafe and Rack Group.
About IWS Group
IWS Group is a family of market-leading product brands, manufacturers and service companies, providing essential services and supplies to the logistics, material handling and other industrial sectors across Europe and beyond.
The industry best practice for safety barriers and traffic management in the workplace
PAS 13 was developed as a code of practice for safety barriers by the British Standards Institution (BSI), and is published as a Publicly Available Specification (PAS) 13 - the code of practice for safety barriers used in traffic management within workplace environments with test methods for safety barrier impact resilience.
What is the PAS 13 code of practice?
PAS 13 is the only global code of practice for industrial safety barriers. It is intended to be used as a reference point for engineers, architects, contractors, health and safety professionals, as well as any other stakeholders involved in the design, construction, deployment and maintenance of safety barriers. The code is based on the principles of risk assessment and recommends selecting the appropriate safety barriers based on the potential hazards and risks in the surrounding area.
Compliance with PAS 13 helps to ensure that the installed safety barriers are effective in protecting people and assets from potential hazards and ultimately minimising the risk of accidents and injuries.
Why was the PAS 13 standard created?
The consequences of workplace accidents and injuries can be severe. They can result in lost productivity, downtime, and increased maintenance and repairs, all of which can potentially be very costly. Moreover, they can lead to long-term health problems for employees and possible legal and financial liabilities for the company.
According to the Health and Safety Executive statistics, approximately 50 people are killed each year, and more than 5,000 are injured in accidents involving workplace transport. PAS 13 outlines the best practice traffic management procedures for workplaces and provides a standard for the safety barriers within them.
Mixing vehicle and pedestrian routes will always increase the risk of potential accidents, so it is imperative that steps are taken to minimise this. PAS 13 gives recommendations for impact resistance, dimensions and positions of safety barriers in the workplace; guidance on how to manage the risks associated with vehicles within the workplace; and specifies the criteria for testing the impact resistance of a safety barrier.
Who created the PAS 13 standard?
PAS 13 was created and published by the British Standards Institution in association with the Health and Safety Executive. The BSI worked with a steering group made up of many high-profile blue-chip companies. These companies were able to offer first-hand experience of health and safety initiatives across a range of industry sectors, to create a consistent and transferable set of guidelines for optimal safety barrier installation.
PAS 13 overview
PAS 13 is the global code of practice for industrial safety barriers, which provides comprehensive guidance on the best practices to employ when these safety barriers are installed in the workplace. As mentioned earlier, it is an official document produced by the British Standards Institution (BSI) and is globally recognised as the most reliable code of practice for industrial safety barriers.
PAS 13 is broken down into two sections. The first section provides health and safety and operations managers with detailed guidance on the correct application of safety barriers at busy facilities. This section includes recommendations on how to select the appropriate safety barrier system based on the level of risk, traffic flow, and environmental conditions.
The second section of PAS 13 is primarily for safety barrier manufacturers. It covers how to conduct standardised testing and certification of safety barriers for strength and durability, as well as how to record and publicise these results in a way that is clear and transparent for customers. This section of PAS 13 helps manufacturers ensure that their products meet the required strength and durability standards, giving customers peace of mind when selecting their safety barrier systems.
Advantages of using PAS 13 certified safety barriers
The use of PAS 13 certified safety barriers in industrial workplaces can have numerous benefits, including:
Racking protection
Safety barriers can also provide protection for racking and other storage systems. In busy industrial facilities, forklifts and other vehicles can cause damage to racking, which can be costly to repair or replace. Impact barriers can absorb the force of collisions, minimising damage and reducing maintenance and repair costs.
Pedestrian protection
PAS 13 safety barriers are used to create safe pedestrian walkways in busy workplaces. By separating pedestrian areas from areas where vehicles are operating, the risk of accidents is greatly reduced. This can help to create a safer working environment and reduce the risk of accidents.
Forklift damage
Forklifts are a common cause of impact damage in industrial facilities, and collisions with other vehicles, racking, and equipment can be costly to repair. PAS 13 certified safety barriers will help to deflect and absorb the force of collisions, reducing the risk of damage to forklifts and other vehicles.
Maintenance and repair costs
By reducing the risk of impact damage to racking, equipment, and vehicles, safety barriers can also help to reduce maintenance and repair costs. In addition, impact barriers themselves are designed to be durable and long-lasting, reducing the need for frequent replacement.
Employee safety
One of the most significant benefits of using PAS 13 certified barriers is the increased safety of employees. These barriers are designed to protect employees from accidents caused by moving machinery, falling objects, and collisions with vehicles. By providing a physical barrier between employees and potential hazards, the risk of injury is greatly reduced.
The use of PAS 13 certified safety barriers in industrial workplaces can have numerous benefits, including increased employee safety, protection for racking and other storage systems, safe pedestrian walkways, reduced damage to forklifts and other vehicles, and lower maintenance and repair costs. By investing in these safety barriers and following the guidelines set out in PAS 13, companies can create a safer working environment and improve the efficiency of their operations.
Benefits of following the PAS 13 standard
Health and safety managers, procurement specialists, directors, facility managers, project managers and site safety leaders all benefit from following PAS 13. It will also likely be of interest to those who want to apply traffic management procedures, as well as those who manufacture, test and measure the performance of safety barriers.
Here are some of the ways that implementing PAS 13 can greatly improve the use of impact safety barriers in industrial workplaces:
Clear guidelines for barrier selection: PAS 13 provides detailed guidelines for the correct application of safety barriers in industrial facilities. This includes information on the selection of barriers that best fit the needs of the facility, taking into account factors such as vehicle types, traffic flow, and the potential for impact.
Standardised testing for barrier strength and durability: The second section of PAS 13 covers how to conduct standardised testing of safety barriers for strength and durability, and record results in a way that is clear and transparent for customers. This ensures that all barriers used in the facility meet a consistent standard for safety and durability.
Improved traffic management: The guidelines set out in PAS 13 can also help to improve traffic management in industrial facilities. By using barriers to separate pedestrian walkways from areas where vehicles are operating, the risk of accidents is greatly reduced. This can help to create a safer working environment and improve the efficiency of operations by reducing downtime due to accidents.
Safety: The primary objective of impact barriers is to prevent accidents and protect workers from hazards. By manufacturers following the recommendations and requirements set out in PAS 13, customers can ensure that their safety barriers are properly designed and installed to provide maximum protection for workers.
Risk assessment: PAS 13 emphasises the importance of conducting a thorough risk assessment before installing safety barriers. This helps businesses identify potential hazards and ensure that their safety barriers are designed to address these specific risks.
Cost-effectiveness: Properly designed and installed safety barriers can help reduce the risk of accidents and damage to equipment and products, which can ultimately result in cost savings for businesses.
The Single Bumper Pedestrian Barriers enhance workplace safety by providing a crucial shield against impacts from Material Handling Equipment (MHE), benefiting both pedestrians and vehicles.
These barriers are rigorously tested according to the PAS 13 code of practice, demonstrating an impressive impact resistance of 11,000 joules and a deflection capability of 224mm, meaning they flex upon impact and return to their original shape.
Suitable for diverse environments, they can be utilised in ambient, chilled, and freezer settings. Available in high-visibility yellow & blue or safety yellow & grey, with bespoke colours offered upon request to meet specific aesthetic needs.
The Double Bumper Pedestrian Barriers provide robust protection for both pedestrians and vehicles. Constructed from heavy-duty polymer, these barriers are designed to offer the highest level of impact safety.
They meet the rigorous PAS 13 code of practice and can withstand impact energies of up to 14,200 joules. Upon impact, they flex to absorb energy and then reform to their original shape, demonstrating excellent resilience.
Suitable for use in various environments, from ambient to chilled and freezer settings, these barriers are available in standard high-visibility yellow and blue or safety yellow and grey. For those requiring a specific aesthetic, bespoke colours can be requested to align with different design requirements.
Summary
In conclusion, the use of safety barriers in industrial workplaces is essential for protecting employees and equipment from impact damage. The implementation of the PAS 13 code of practice for industrial safety barriers provides a reliable and effective means of ensuring that the correct barriers are selected and used in these workplaces. PAS 13 provides clear guidelines for barrier selection, standardised testing for barrier strength and durability, improved traffic management, reduced maintenance and repair costs, and compliance with safety regulations.
By following the guidelines set out in PAS 13, companies can create a safer working environment for their staff and ultimately improve the efficiency of their operations. Investing in high-quality safety barriers that meet PAS 13 standards not only reduces the risk of accidents, but also protects the company from potential liability and will reduce maintenance and repair costs over time.
Therefore, we highly recommend that all industrial workplaces follow the PAS 13 code of practice when selecting and implementing safety barriers. As a leading provider of impact safety barriers, our company offers a range of high-quality polymer safety barriers that have been independently certified to the PAS 13 standard.
Contact us today to see how we can help optimise safety in your workplace.
Introducing Our Newest Asset in Business Development
We are thrilled to announce the latest addition to the Brandsafe team – a seasoned professional with an impressive 15-year track record in sales within the recruitment industry. Meet Francesca Towalska our dynamic Business Development Manager, who brings a wealth of expertise and a passion for driving success.
With a successful career spanning over a decade, Francesca has honed her skills in the fast-paced and ever-evolving field of recruitment. Her extensive experience not only demonstrates her proficiency in sales but also underscores her adaptability to industry trends, making her an invaluable asset to Brandsafe.
What truly sets Francesca apart is her unwavering drive and unparalleled passion for what she does. She doesn’t just meet targets; she exceeds them. With a determination that is contagious, a hunger that is ferocious, and a tenacious appetite for progression, Francesca will play a key role in Brandsafe’s next phase of significant growth. Her commitment to achieving excellence has not only propelled her career but has also earned her a reputation as a go-getter in the competitive world of business development.
Brandsafe is thrilled to have Francesca on board, knowing that her wealth of experience, combined with her tireless work ethic, will undoubtedly contribute to our next phase of development. As we welcome Francesca into our team, we look forward to the innovative ideas, energy and strategic vision she brings to the table.
In his own words, our commercial director, Jonathan welcomed Francesca to the team:
‘I am incredibly pleased to welcome Francesca to the team. Francesca brings with her and abundance of expertise in working in the Construction and Industrial sectors. Her infectious energy, knowledge and enthusiasm will shine though in this role and will bring an extra dimension to the business. She has a natural tenacious new business nature that will be a key asset to our growing business operations. I look forward to working with Francesca and developing her journey with Brandsafe.’
In her own words, Francesca said,
‘I am delighted for this exciting challenge ahead, I am grateful for the smooth onboarding and how the team has helped me adapt to everything so quickly, together with the team, we are going to reach great heights’
Join us in extending a warm welcome to Francesca – a driven and passionate professional who is poised to make a significant impact on Brandsafe’s journey towards new heights of success!
Welcome to the Brandsafe Team Francesca!
Francesca with Brandsafe Commercial Director, Jonathan Hibbins.
Essential Steps for Choosing and Implementing Industrial Bollards for Safety Assurance
Industrial bollards play a crucial role in workplace safety by providing protection against vehicle collisions and creating safe spaces for employees and equipment. Whether you are looking to replace existing bollards or install new ones, it is essential to understand their importance and factors to consider before making a purchase decision.
Additionally, choosing the right supplier and following the correct installation process are vital to ensure bollard effectiveness. This guide will take you through all the necessary steps and considerations for buying and installing industrial bollards.
Discover everything you need to know about purchasing and installing industrial bollards for safeguarding your workplace in this comprehensive guide.
Understanding the Importance of Industrial Bollards
Industrial bollards play a crucial role in ensuring safety and security in various settings. These robust and sturdy vertical posts are specifically designed to prevent unauthorised access, protect buildings and equipment, and enhance pedestrian safety. With their durable construction and reliable functionality, industrial bollards have become an essential feature in many industries.
Defining Industrial Bollards
Industrial bollards are available in a wide range of materials, including steel, concrete, and plastic. This versatility allows them to withstand the harsh conditions often found in industrial environments. Steel bollards, for example, offer exceptional strength and durability, making them ideal for heavy-duty applications. On the other hand, concrete bollards provide a solid and immovable barrier, ensuring maximum protection. Plastic, otherwise known as polymer bollards, offer a combination of strength and versatility. They often have steel cores for strength but feature a polymer plastic shell that allows them to flex upon impact. Ultimately, this means polymer bollards will last longer than purely steel bollards, which can bend, or entirely concrete bollards, which can chip, crack, and crumble after severe impact.
These bollards come in various sizes, designs, and styles to suit different needs and preferences. From simple and functional designs to more aesthetically pleasing options, industrial bollards can be customised to blend seamlessly with the surrounding environment.
The Role of Bollards in Workplace Safety
One of the primary functions of industrial bollards is to act as both a visual and physical barrier, preventing vehicles from entering restricted areas. As a solution for this, we offer 3-meter versions of our ImpactSAFE Heavy Duty Bollard for extra visibility for high lorry and truck cabins. By clearly demarcating boundaries, bollards help minimise the risk of accidents and injuries in the workplace. This is particularly important in industrial settings where heavy machinery, forklifts, and other vehicles are often in operation.
Strategically placing bollards at key locations can create designated safe zones, ensuring that pedestrians and workers are protected from potential hazards. These safe zones can be established around entrances, loading docks, walkways, and other areas where there is a high risk of vehicle-related incidents. By effectively separating pedestrians from vehicular traffic, industrial bollards contribute to a safer and more organised work environment.
Example: Two Protection Bollards protecting a lift from heavy impacts.
Furthermore, industrial bollards help maintain smooth traffic flow within industrial facilities. By guiding vehicles along designated routes and preventing unauthorised access to certain areas, bollards ensure operations proceed efficiently and without disruptions. This not only improves productivity but also reduces the likelihood of accidents caused by congestion or confusion. We offer a light solution; Flexible Delineators that can demarcate different streams of traffic and snap back into place after being run over.
In addition to their practical benefits, industrial bollards can also enhance the overall appearance of industrial spaces. With the availability of different designs and finishes, bollards can be customised to complement the architectural style of the surrounding buildings. This not only adds aesthetic value but also creates a cohesive and visually appealing environment.
In conclusion, industrial bollards are essential elements in maintaining safety, security, and efficiency in various industrial settings. Their robust construction, versatile designs, and strategic placement contribute to the overall well-being of workers, pedestrians, and property. By understanding the importance of industrial bollards, businesses can make informed decisions to implement these vital safety measures.
Yellow Heavy Duty ImpactSAFE, PAS 13 certified safety posts for enhanced workplace protection.
Factors to Consider When Buying Industrial Bollards
Industrial bollards play a crucial role in enhancing the safety and security of a workplace. Whether you need to protect pedestrians, control traffic flow, or safeguard valuable assets, choosing the right bollards is essential. When making this important decision, there are several factors to consider that will ensure you select the most suitable bollards for your specific needs.
PAS 13 tested Protection, EV Station potted and bolted Posts, Cover Kits for aesthetic enhancement, and Heavy-Duty solutions.
Material and Durability
One of the primary considerations when buying industrial bollards is the material used in their construction. The material significantly impacts their durability and longevity. Steel bollards, for example, offer superior strength and resistance, making them ideal for high-traffic areas or locations where vehicle impact is a concern. On the other hand, concrete bollards provide excellent impact resistance and are often used in areas where heavy machinery is present. Polymer bollards, crafted from durable plastic, blend robustness with flexibility. Their steel cores provide structural strength, while the polymer exterior grants the ability to flex when hit. This combination ensures a longer lifespan compared to solely steel bollards, which may warp, or concrete bollards, prone to chipping, cracking, and crumbling after intense impacts.
Furthermore, it is important to note that different materials may require different maintenance procedures. Steel bollards, for instance, may need periodic repainting to prevent corrosion, while concrete bollards may require occasional cleaning to maintain their appearance. Understanding the maintenance requirements of the chosen material is crucial for ensuring the longevity and effectiveness of the bollards.
Size and Design
The size and design of the bollards are also important factors to consider. The size will depend on their intended purpose and the surroundings in which they will be installed. For example, if you need bollards to control vehicle access, you may opt for taller and wider bollards to effectively deter unauthorised vehicles. On the other hand, if you require posts for pedestrian safety, shorter and more visible options may be more suitable.
In addition to size, the design of the bollards should also be taken into account. Consider factors such as visibility requirements and aesthetic appeal. Bollards that are highly visible can help prevent accidents and improve overall safety. Additionally, choosing bollards that blend well with the architectural style of your workplace can enhance the overall appearance of the area while still ensuring their functionality.
Furthermore, it’s crucial to look beyond to the broader spectrum of safety and operational efficiency within your workplace. Brandsafe offers an array of barrier solutions that cater to various aspects of workplace safety and functionality. From enhancing pedestrian walkways with our Polymer Safety Barriersto safeguarding storage areas and improving day-to-day operations with our Pedestrian Safety Barriers, each product is designed with the end-user in mind. Moreover, our Impact Protection Solutions provide an extra layer of security to both personnel and infrastructure, ensuring a comprehensive approach to workplace safety. When selecting safety barriers, consider the full range of options available to address the specific needs of your business, contributing to a safer, more efficient working environment. Explore our extensive product line to discover how Brandsafe can elevate safety and functionality at your facility.
Cost and Maintenance
Cost is another crucial consideration when selecting industrial bollards. While it may be tempting to opt for the most affordable option, it is important to weigh the initial cost against the long-term benefits. High-quality materials may have a higher upfront cost, but they often require less maintenance and offer a longer lifespan, resulting in cost savings over time. It is essential to consider your budget and balance it with the desired durability and performance of the bollards.
Furthermore, regular inspection and maintenance are crucial to ensure the continued effectiveness of the bollards. Developing a maintenance plan and adhering to it will help identify any potential issues early on and prevent costly repairs or replacements in the future. By investing in proper maintenance, you can extend the lifespan of the bollards and maximise their effectiveness in enhancing safety and security.
In conclusion, when buying industrial bollards, it is important to consider factors such as material and durability, size and design, as well as cost and maintenance. By carefully evaluating these factors, you can make an informed decision and select the most suitable bollards that meet your specific needs, ensuring the safety and security of your workplace.
Choosing the Right Bollard Supplier
When it comes to selecting a bollard supplier, there are several factors to consider that can greatly impact your overall experience and satisfaction. In addition to the basic criteria of reputation and experience, there are other important aspects that should not be overlooked.
One of the first things to consider when choosing a bollard supplier is their reputation and experience in the industry. It is crucial to opt for manufacturers or suppliers who have a proven track record of delivering high-quality products and excellent customer service. This can be determined by checking online reviews and asking for recommendations from trusted sources. Check out our insightful case studies here.
Furthermore, a supplier with extensive experience in the industry is more likely to have a deep understanding of the various needs and requirements of different customers. They will have encountered a wide range of scenarios and challenges, allowing them to provide valuable insights and guidance throughout the purchasing process. With 14 years experience within the industry Brandsafe always strives to understand what the customer needs and deliver solutions that are tailored, effective, and reliable. Additionally, being part of the IWS Group, allows us to offer a complete comprehensive solution to warehouse and industrial requirements.
When selecting a bollard supplier, prioritise reputation and industry experience. A supplier with a strong track record in delivering quality products and exceptional customer service is essential. Online reviews and recommendations from trusted sources can provide insights into their reliability.
Moreover, seasoned suppliers are adept at navigating diverse customer needs and challenges, offering valuable insights and guidance. With 14 years of industry experience, Brandsafe exemplifies this expertise. We’re committed to understanding customer needs and delivering tailored, effective, and reliable solutions. As part of the IWS Group, we provide a comprehensive approach to warehouse and industrial safety requirements. Discover more about our commitment and solutions through our insightful case studies.
Product Range
Another important factor to consider is the supplier’s product range. It is essential to choose a supplier who offers a wide variety of bollard options to suit your specific needs. Whether you require removable, fixed, or retractable bollards, having a supplier who can provide the desired product variety is crucial.
Moreover, a diverse product range indicates that the supplier is well-equipped to cater to different industries and applications. This versatility can be particularly beneficial if you have unique requirements or if you anticipate the need for different types of bollards in the future.
While the quality of the bollards themselves is important, good customer service is equally vital throughout the entire buying process. From initial inquiries to after-sales support, it is crucial to choose a supplier who values open communication, provides timely responses, and offers assistance with installation, maintenance, and any other concerns that may arise.
Effective communication is particularly important when it comes to customisation options. A supplier who is willing to listen to your specific requirements and provide tailored solutions demonstrates a commitment to customer satisfaction. Additionally, a supplier who offers comprehensive support and guidance can help ensure that the bollards are installed correctly and are properly maintained, maximising their lifespan and effectiveness.
By considering these factors in your decision-making process, you can choose a bollard supplier who not only meets your immediate needs but also provides a positive and satisfactory experience from start to finish.
At Brandsafe, our commitment to excellence extends far beyond our products; it’s reflected in every interaction and service we provide. As we continue further into 2024, our focus is firmly on enhancing the customer experience through responsiveness and comprehensive solutions.
BRANDSAFE: OUR COMMITMENT
Responsive Service: In an effort to set new benchmarks within the industry, we aim to respond to all Supply Only enquiries within 48 hours. We understand the importance of timely solutions, and as part of our dedication to this goal, we offer next-day shipping for items that are in stock. This ensures that our clients receive the necessary safety solutions promptly, minimising downtime and enhancing operational efficiency.
At Brandsafe, our ethos is centred around providing not just products, but comprehensive safety solutions tailored to the unique needs of each client. Our approach is consultative and customer-focused, ensuring that every interaction is geared towards understanding and addressing your specific safety concerns and operational requirements.
Consultative Expertise
Our external sales team is renowned for its expertise and customer-centric approach. Recognised through numerous customer testimonials, our professionals excel in conducting detailed site surveys and inspections. This process isn’t about just selling a product; it’s about understanding your environment and recommending solutions that truly fit your needs. We pride ourselves on our ability to listen, analyse, and advise, ensuring that you receive the most appropriate and effective safety solutions.
Seamless Installation
Recognising the critical importance of minimal disruption to your operations, our specialist installation team is committed to flexibility and efficiency. We coordinate closely with you to schedule installations at times that align with your business activities, ensuring a seamless integration of our safety solutions into your workplace without impacting your operational flow. Our installers are not just technicians; they are skilled professionals who install each product with care and precision, reflecting our overall commitment to quality and customer satisfaction.
Furthermore, our goal is to alleviate the burden of safety management from our clients, allowing you to focus on your core business activities while we ensure your environment is safe and compliant. With our team of credible professionals, we take the ‘hard work’ out of the equation for you, providing peace of mind through our consultative approach and expert installation services.
Finally, our aim for 2024 is to not only meet the immediate needs of our clients but to also offer a seamless and satisfactory experience from the first point of contact to the completion of each project. Our dedication to providing rapid responses, efficient delivery, and comprehensive solutions underscores our ethos of ‘safety, simplified’. With Brandsafe, you’re choosing a partner who values your business and is fully invested in contributing to your success.
Heavy Duty Bollards in a Loading Bay with Single Bumper Pedestrian Barriers – PAS 13 Tested.
Conclusion
In conclusion, industrial bollards are an integral part of workplace safety measures. Understanding their importance, considering factors such as material, size, and design, and choosing the right supplier are crucial steps in the buying process. Additionally, following the correct installation process and conducting post-installation checks are vital to ensure the effectiveness and longevity of the bollards. By following this ultimate guide, you can make informed decisions and create a safer work environment with industrial bollards.
Ensuring Safety in Your Retail Environment: A Closer Look Impact Safety Protection
In the fast-paced world of retail, where efficiency and safety go hand-in-hand, the design and implementation of impact safety solutions play a crucial role. Warehouses and distribution centres, being the nerve centres of retail operations, require meticulous planning to ensure the well-being of workers, protection of assets, and the smooth flow of goods and vehicles around the building. In this blog, we will explore the impact of key industrial safety products such as bollards, safety barriers, pedestrian handrails, racking protection, and bespoke solutions on enhancing safety in busy retail spaces.
Bollards: The Unsung Heroes of Safety
Bollards are often unassuming yet powerful safety features in any retail space. These sturdy protection posts can be strategically placed to prevent collisions, safeguarding both personnel and equipment. Impact-resistant bollards will often act as the first line of defence against accidental forklift or machinery collisions, minimising damage to infrastructure and preventing potentially serious injuries. Investing in high-quality bollards is a proactive step towards creating a safer work environment.
Safety Barriers: Diverting Danger with Precision
Double Bumper Pedestrian Barriers
Retail spaces often involve the movement of heavy equipment, and safety barriers are essential to control and direct traffic effectively. Impact-resistant barriers not only prevent unauthorised access to sensitive areas but also guide the flow of goods and vehicles within the warehouse. Flexible polymer barrier systems, offer adaptability to changing operational needs, ensuring that safety measures remain effective over time.
Pedestrian Handrails: Promoting Safety on Every Step
Brandsafe Website Images Testing Products8
In a bustling warehouse or distribution centre, stairways and mezzanine floors are common features. Installing robust pedestrian handrails along these structures is a fundamental safety measure. Handrails provide stability for workers navigating elevated areas and serve as a physical guide to prevent accidental falls. The incorporation of impact-resistant materials ensures that handrails can withstand the rigors of a busy retail environment while maintaining their protective function.
Racking Protection: Tailoring Safety to Fit Your Needs
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The heart of any retail space lies in its racking systems. Customized racking solutions go beyond mere storage; they contribute significantly to overall safety. Bespoke racking designs can be tailored to the specific needs of a warehouse, maximising space utilisation while prioritising safety. Features such as reinforced frames, anti-collapse mesh, and impact-resistant coatings ensure that the racking system remains resilient in the face of operational challenges.
Bespoke Solutions: Unleashing Creativity for Safety
While off-the-shelf safety solutions are readily available, bespoke solutions take safety to the next level. Collaborating with experts to design custom safety features ensures that every inch of the retail space is optimised for safety and efficiency. This could involve tailored barrier configurations, unique bollard placements, or specialised racking systems that address the specific challenges of a given warehouse or distribution centre.
Conclusion:
In the dynamic world of retail, where safety is paramount, investing in quality safety products is a strategic decision that pays dividends in the long run. Bollards, barriers, handrails, and bespoke solutions collectively contribute to creating a secure and efficient retail environment. By prioritising safety, retail spaces can minimise risks, protect assets, and foster a culture of well-being among their workforces. As the retail landscape continues to evolve, Brandsafe part of IWS group stands as a reliable partner, ensuring the safety of every element within a warehouse or distribution centre.
Brandsafe are delighted to announce the appointment of Jonathan Hibbins, as it continues to invest in the strategic growth of its commercial team.
Jonathan joins Brandsafe as Commercial Director, bringing with him 25 years of valuable industry insight from a career spanning roles at Wanzl GmbH, McCue and QED Environmental Systems.
Brandsafe is expanding its sales team to align with its growing network of customers and resellers on a global scale, with Jonathan being the latest in a number of strategic appointments in this area.
With a vast amount of experience in the main contractor, end user and reseller sectors, Jonathan is adept at building long-standing relationships and providing integrated safety solutions to a diverse customer base.
Outside of the office, Jonathan is a keen chef, boxer, and runner, having raised over £100,000 by running five marathons in five days to assist with the care of a terminally ill friend’s sister and family.
Jonathan continues to raise awareness every year for various charitable causes, something that is particularly important to him with his youngest son having been born with a gene deletion.
Speaking on his new role, Jonathan said: “I am extremely excited to join Brandsafe as they have an excellent reputation in the industry, providing first-class product and service to various markets. Being part of IWS Group allows the option and extra dimension for the customer for a full turnkey solution, which is a unique offering in the industrial safety sector.”
Brandsafe’s Managing Director, Susy Keating, said: “We are incredibly pleased to welcome Jonathan to the team. As an experienced commercial leader in the industrial safety sector, he will be a key asset to our growing business operations, and we look forward to him further developing our already market-leading activities with his insight and expertise on an international scale.”
About Brandsafe
Part of IWS Group, Brandsafe specialises in bespoke designed impact protection systems and solutions for distribution centres, warehouses, manufacturing, and production facilities. Our innovative product range combines the versatility and high visibility of polymer with the inherent strength and cost-effectiveness of steel. Brandsafe prides itself on its unmatched project and consulting expertise, which provides an unrivalled solution for companies who put safety first.
IWS Group is thrilled to announce the recent appointment of Richard Harden as Chief Executive Officer. This move comes as part of the Group’s ongoing strategy to further drive innovation and growth, ensuring sustained leadership in the sector.
Richard brings his wealth of industry experience to IWS Group with a strong leadership background, having held CEO and MD positions at previous companies, Stuart Turner Ltd and WILO, alongside his role as President of the trade organisation BPMA. He has enjoyed a successful career built around improving top-line growth for private equity-backed firms, leveraging strategic partnerships and formulating innovative sales and marketing strategies to regularly achieve significant growth milestones.
Under Richard’s leadership, a key focus will be on amplifying the established collaborative strengths of IWS Group to provide a seamlessly integrated solution for customers in the industrial workspace. This cohesive approach is ultimately aimed at enhancing our customers’ satisfaction and safety, as well as increasing the overall impact and efficacy of IWS Group’s unique value proposition in the marketplace.
Commenting on his new position, Richard said, “It’s clear IWS Group is a very ambitious company with a strong track record of organic and acquisition-driven success and a clear vision for growth, which is what attracted me to the position. The future of the group excites me, and I am delighted to lead it into its next phase of growth and innovation”.
“We’re extremely excited to have Richard on board as our new CEO,” said Neil Stephenson, Chief Financial Officer for IWS Group, “Richard’s extensive leadership background and his proven track record of accelerating market share aligns perfectly with our strategic vision for IWS Group. His dynamic leadership and innovative approach is just what we need to navigate the evolving market landscape and propel IWS Group to new heights. We look forward to the fresh perspective and the boundless energy he brings to our team, and we’re confident that under his leadership, IWS Group will continue to thrive and achieve great success.”
About IWS Group
IWS Group is a family of market-leading product brands, manufacturers, and service companies providing essential services and supplies to the logistics, material handling, and other industrial sectors across Europe and beyond. The IWS Group portfolio of companies currently consists of Beaverswood®, Brandsafe®, Rack Group, and Anco Storage.
What are the 4 main types of Pedestrian Safety Barriers and Guardrails?
Incorporating pedestrian safety barriers and guardrails into the workplace is essential.
A visible safety barrier gives a clear indication and lessens the likelihood of accidents to employees and non-employees, and therefore creates a safer working environment.
In this blog, we'll discuss four types of safety barriers, delve into PAS 13, and explore various warehouse safety barriers, including Pedestrian Safety Barriers, Polymer Safety Barriers, and Armco Safety Barriers.
Required Pedestrian Safety Barriers and Guardrails in the workplace
• Located at the entrance of a car park or similar entrance.
• Established to allow people and vehicles to move safely in separate traffic routes.
• At the entrances and exits of buildings.
• At the corner of buildings.
• To prevent pedestrians from walking into roads and traffic routes.
These important applications of safety barriers can be segmented into 4 main categories: Pedestrian Safety Barriers, Traffic Management Barriers, Building Protection Barriers, and Access Control Barriers.
Pedestrian Safety Barriers and Guardrails
A pedestrian safety barrier and guardrail system will safeguard pedestrian traffic against workplace vehicles and hazards.
Pedestrian safety barriers are essential workplace safety installations designed to separate forklifts and other material handling equipment (MHE) from heavily trafficked pedestrian areas. Thus, ensuring the safety of employees and preventing accidents in industrial environments like warehouses.
This type of barrier should be used to separate pedestrians from hazards. For example, they can indicate that visitors are not permitted to walk across the MHE lanes. In the workplace, they provide protection for people from harm.
Pedestrian Safety Barriers and Guardrails are permanent, tested industrial or warehouse barriers, as opposed to cheap, non-permanent metal crowd control barricades or plastic road fences. For example, you could fit them to a mezzanine to protect employees from falling and injuring themselves.
Moreover, the Guardrail Systems (MHE / PIT) are a perfect safety measure on the warehouse floor, protecting employees from forklift tines. As standard, it comes in high-visibility yellow, but custom options are available to suit various environments.
Additionally, if a simpler solution is required, then it would be best to install a Pedestrian Handrail System (HR50). A modular handrail system of galvanised steel covered with yellow and black polymer safety sleeves. This makes pedestrian routes stand out.
These handrails can also be attached to Armco Barriers for additional crash protection. The Armco 760HR Safety Barrier is another modular system with the ability to add any Armco accessories, for additional protection.
Traffic Management Barriers
Traffic safety barriers shield property and personnel against vehicle impacts.
These barriers should be used to act as a first line of defence against vehicular impacts. For example, the Armco Wall Mounted Safety Barrier is a great protective guard for load bearing walls, and walls directly in front of vehicle parking areas. In addition, they are equipped with rubber shock absorbers to act as a cushion on impact.
Made from galvanised steel it resists corrosion, while allowing some flexibility to deflect vehicular impacts.
Additionally, it should be noted that Armco is extremely versatile, being used inside warehouses as well as outside in HGV yards. Armco 1100D / 1100T Safety Barriers are a prime example of this as it can be easily double or triple stacked as required. This makes it ideal for storage picking areas and outside as a shield for pedestrians and structures alike. Its robust steel construction ensures long-lasting protection in high-traffic environments, and the reflective finish enhances visibility in low-light conditions.
Several reflective polymer Armco accessories can be attached to the barrier ends for higher visibility. For example, the Armco Safety End has two diamond grade reflectors and comes in either black or yellow colour options.
Finally, the outside walkways of facilities need to have separate traffic routes. Single Bumper Pedestrian Barriers are an excellent form of traffic partitioning.
Building Protection Barriers
Building protection barriers protect business assets from severe or repeated damage.
HSE highlights that the best practice is to align safety barriers where there is most likely to be a risk to personnel and/or property.
Suitable for many applications around a warehouse or factory floor. For example, Single Bumper Barriers are ideal by loading bay doors. Where pallets, stillages, and vehicular accidents are common. Typically, yellow finishes will be applied to increase general visibility and to warn of a hazard.
Furthermore, Double Bumper Safety Barriers are tested to deflect an Impact Energy of 14,200 J. These polymer safety barriers are a necessary safety feature for areas with repeated collisions. They will shield electric outlets, terminals, and loading bay door mechanisms.
We can consult with you to calculate the energy exerted in a collision based on your vehicle's maximum speed and weight, considering direct, 45-degree, and 15-degree impacts. Additionally, we can provide guidance on the optimal placement of speed restrictions, such as Speed Bumps.
Access Control Barriers
Access control barriers restrict and limit unauthorised access to restricted areas.
The Pedestrian Safety Barrier is made from high density polyethylene (HDPE). This makes it non-toxic, and usable at operating temperature range of -40°C to 50°C. Ideal for food preparation and storage areas.
Furthermore, slowing or limiting the speed of foot traffic can reduce risk and improve safety compliance. For example, installing Pedestrian Safety Gates (made from HDPE) is an ideal accessory for a pedestrian crossing.
The Polymer Safety Barrier range is an excellent option for various production facilities as they are easy to clean and maintain. Available in a range of high visibility colours, contact us if you have any bespoke requirements.
Similarly, a different type of access control barrier could be Security Caging and Fencing. This method is to protect assets in a more protected and secure manner. For example, important resources such as gas, electric, or other control systems.
Standard colour options:
• Colourfast Yellow & Grey
• Hi-Vis Yellow & Blue
• Safety Yellow & Grey
Safety Barrier Colours - What do they mean?
Safety Barrier colours have significant cross-cultural universal meanings.
The following has been taken from a blog written by our sister company Beaverswood and the Health and Safety Executive:
Red
• Prohibited area
• Dangerous behaviour; stop; shutdown; evacuate.
Yellow / Amber
• Warning sign
• Be careful; take precautions; examine.
Blue
• Mandatory action
• Specific behaviour or action; wear protective equipment.
Green
• Emergency exit / First Aid station
• Doors; exits; escape routes; equipment and facilities.
Breaching these strict health and safety regulations is a criminal offence. Enforcement by the relevant authorities can result in serious fines or imprisonment as outlined by the Health and Safety Executive.
Action can be taken against companies, individual managers, and responsible persons.
Safety barriers and signs lessen the likelihood of accidents to employees and non-employees, and therefore creates a safer working environment.
(What are the 4 types of safety signs? Beaverswood, 2020).
Best Practices for Installing Your Pedestrian Safety Barriers
Installing your Pedestrian Safety Barriers and Guardrails is a significant process that ensures the safety of your workplace. Always consult your Health and Safety Specialist.
First, run a new risk assessment. Begin by assessing the areas where the barriers are needed, identifying high-traffic zones and potential hazards. Each business should use their specialists to determine the necessary area. It is important that the area chosen has sufficient room to support the stated deflection of a safety barrier. Otherwise, this would render the barrier ineffective. For example, the Double Bumper Pedestrian Barrier requires 232mm. Therefore, when it was tested to PAS 13 certification it flexed 232mm upon direct impact.
Subsequently, once you have determined the location, use the appropriate fixtures supplied to secure the barriers in place. It is the installers duty to ensure they are firmly anchored to withstand any potential impact. Make sure the barriers are positioned to create clear and easily navigable pedestrian walkways, separating them from vehicle traffic or hazardous equipment.
Finally, regularly inspect and maintain your barriers to ensure they remain effective in preventing accidents and protecting your employees.
By following these installation guidelines, you will enhance safety in your workplace. Creating a secure environment for both employees and visitors.
Alternatively, you can have them expertly installed by our Site Teams here at Brandsafe.
PAS 13 - Why it is important?
BSI released PAS 13, the safety barrier code of practice, to improve workplace safety by minimising accidents involving workplace transport. This collaborative standard offers guidelines on safety barrier impact resilience, dimensions, and positions. Emphasising the importance of implementing a safety traffic management system to safeguard personnel, vehicles, and structures in various workplaces.
It is one of the only specifications and standards for safety barriers in the workplace.
PAS 13 is crucial in the field of safety equipment. It is specifically aimed at products like Pedestrian Safety Barriers and Guardrails. This standardised testing procedure ensures that safety barriers meet stringent quality and performance standards, guaranteeing their effectiveness in real-world industrial environments.
PAS 13 provides several key benefits:
1. Quality assurance: PAS 13 testing ensures barrier strength through rigorous impact assessment.
2. Reliability: PAS 13 certifies barrier durability.
3. Compliance: PAS 13 aligns with safety standards.
4. Peace of mind: Certifications bring confidence.
5. Cost savings: Durable barriers save money.
In light of this, highlighting the importance of stringent testing, we have explored a few products from the Polymer Safety Barriers - PAS 13 Tested range. These barriers are proven to withstand high-impact collisions, ensuring robust safety in industrial settings. They are rigorously tested to PAS 13 standards, providing unmatched protection.
TÜV Nord
All our PAS 13 certified products are independently tested by TÜV Nord to PAS 13 standards. This means that an assessment is carried out by a member of TÜV Nord evaluating the production process, manufacturing, and installation of the barriers. Finally, testing their strength by simulating a high impact crash, which we carried out with the use of our custom built Pendulum.
Pedestrian Safety Barriers FAQs
What safety barriers are compulsory for workplaces in the UK?
In the UK, the requirement for safety barriers is governed by the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, which mandates a safe workplace. The specifics depend on the workplace's individual circumstances and risk assessments. It's advisable to consult the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) guidelines or a health and safety professional to understand the exact requirements for your workplace.
What are pedestrian safety barriers and guardrails used for?
Pedestrian safety barriers and guardrails are used for separating all types of pedestrian foot traffic from any type of vehicular traffic. The main aim is to prevent loss of life or injury.
What does the colour of a safety barrier mean?
The most common safety barrier colour is yellow which indicates a warning of a hazard. Red safety barriers are used to highlight danger, prohibited areas, or to slow traffic down like a temporary road barrier. Finally, green safety barriers can be used to highlight safety routes to fire exists or first-aid.
Safety bollards serve a number of purposes; from EV charging point protection to keeping pedestrians safe, they’re a vital asset to many businesses. However, although these bollards are incredibly useful, that’s not to say they don’t need looking after.
Safety bollards require regular inspection to ensure they continue to serve their intended purpose effectively. This is essential to keep them in good condition, extend their lifespan, and ensure they provide adequate protection. Here, we explore some of the most common reasons why maintenance might be required.
Wear and tear
Although seemingly obvious, bollards can be subjected to wear and tear over time. Especially if they are located in high-traffic areas, such as in and around a busy warehouse or factory.
This can result in dents, scratches, or other damage that may weaken their structural integrity and compromise their ability to protect your visitors, staff, and equipment. Inspections and maintenance are, therefore, essential to ensure that all safety bollards perform as they should.
Foundation stability
Bollards are typically anchored to the ground through a foundation or base plate. Over time, the bollard foundation may shift or settle, which can affect the overall stability of the bollard. Regular inspections can identify any issues with the foundation and allow for subsequent repairs to be made promptly.
Rust and corrosion
If bollards are made of metal, they are susceptible to rust and corrosion, especially in outdoor environments or areas with exposure to moisture. Regular inspections and protective coatings can help prevent this.
Paint and visibility
At Brandsafe, we have an even simpler solution than repainting. Our bollard cover kits feature diamond-grade reflective bands and simple push-fit assembly so they easily fit over your existing steel bollards without the need for repainting.
The frequency and extent of maintenance will depend on factors such as the type of bollard, its location, the materials it’s made of, and the environmental conditions. It’s essential to establish a maintenance schedule and conduct regular inspections to identify any issues promptly. Bollards that have been neglected for longer periods of time may not provide the level of safety and protection they were originally installed for.
If you’d like to find out why Brandsafe is a leading provider of high visibility impact protection and safety solutions for the industrial workplace, get in touch with the team today.
Throughout our lives, we’ll likely have encountered hundreds ofspeed bumps. Whether you’re the driver yourself or a passenger, you can be sure to find speed bumps in most places you’ll travel.
But how exactly do they work? We know they’re there for a reason but what is it about speed bumps that reduce vehicle speed and save lives? We’ll take a look.
What are speed bumps?
Put simply, speed bumps are atraffic calming measure that force drivers to slow down – usually to around 10mph – in an attempt to reduce aggressive and dangerous driving.
According toSunderland City Council, results prove that new schemes (involving speed bumps) will reduce accidents by around 60%, and they are particularly effective in reducing accidents to pedestrians and cyclists.
What is the difference between speed bumps and speed humps?
While the terms are often used interchangeably, speed humps are generally shorter in height and wider than speed bumps. Speed bumps are usually what you’ll find in car parks and other areas where pedestrians and vehicles share busy spaces.
How do speed bumps reduce speed and save lives?
Visual cues
Speed bumps serve as a visual cue to drivers, signalling them to slow down and proceed with caution. Their distinctive shape and bright colouring draws attention and prompts motorists to anticipate a change in road conditions.
Physical discomfort
Let’s face it, most of us can think of better things than the uncomfortable jolt that accompanies driving over a speed bump. This often leads to drivers reducing their speed to minimise discomfort for themselves and their passengers.
Increased reaction times
By lowering vehicle speeds, speed bumps provide drivers with more time to react to unexpected events or hazards on the road. This increased reaction time can help prevent collisions and enable drivers to respond appropriately to pedestrians, cyclists, and/or other vehicles.
Enhanced pedestrian safety
Speed bumps are commonly installed in areas where there is a high volume of pedestrian activity, such as near schools or in commercial areas like industrial warehouses and factory / manufacturing sites. By reducing vehicle speeds, they create a safer environment for pedestrians, as it becomes easier for drivers to notice and yield to people crossing the road at any time.
At Brandsafe, we’re the leading provider of high-visibility impact protection and safety solutions for the industrial workplace. If you’d like to find out more about our speed bumps and how they can help, please feel free toget in touch with our team today.
By now you’ve undoubtedly heard of them, you’ve likely seen a good few out on the road, or perhaps you even own or lease one yourself. The rise of electric vehicles is a significant development that has skyrocketed in popularity in recent years.
As a result, this is affecting a variety of businesses, meaning that companies are being forced to adapt to the logistical and infrastructural changes the EV market is bringing about. We take a look at what those changes are, and what this means in practice for different sectors.
Automotive Industry
The automotive industry is, of course, one of the most impacted industries of the EV movement, as electric vehicles represent a significant shift in the technology and engineering of cars.
As electric vehicles continue to grow in popularity, companies that specialise in the production of traditional vehicles may struggle to adapt. They’ll need to place particular focus on innovation and modernisation if they hope to compete with the rest of the EV market.
Energy Industry
It goes without saying that the energy industry will experience unprecedented demand for electricity as electric vehicles become increasingly commonplace.
The pressure to increase efficiency and capacity is likely to put pressure on many energy companies in order for them to effectively cope with the rising demand.
Charging Infrastructure
As more and more people invest in electric vehicles, the demand for charging infrastructure will rapidly increase.
Think offices, supermarkets, and shopping centre car parks. The majority of these will currently only have a few dedicated EV charging points; however, companies are going to be forced to adapt to the ever-growing demand if they want to retain both staff and customers.
Of course, the addition of extra EV charging infrastructure isn’t cheap, but it’s an essential cost that businesses will need to consider if they want to keep up with the demands of the modern consumer and workforce.
In order to save money in the longer term, however, companies can invest in solutions such as EV charging point protection which offers cost-effective impact damage prevention for such valuable assets.
Sustainability
Businesses are currently under increasing pressure to demonstrate their commitment to sustainability, and the rise of electric vehicles merely serves to further this cause.
By installing EV charging infrastructure, companies can not only show they care about their employees, customers, and the environment but also that they are focused on adapting to, and supporting, eco-friendly change.
At Brandsafe, we are a team of technical experts who are proud to be pioneers in superior performance, high visibility, and sustainable impact protection for the industrial workspace. To find out more about how we can help your business, contact us today to speak with our team.
Introducing IWS Group’s PAS 13-Certified Impact Safety Barriers
IWS Group has impact-tested its Brandsafe® range of polymer safety barriers, adhering to the rigorous PAS 13 code of practice. This process, third-party accredited by TÜV Nord –an internationally recognised quality seal – measures the barriers’ impact resilience. It empowers customers to choose the most suitable systems for their needs. By complying with PAS 13, IWS Group positions itself among the elite companies upholding the industry’s highest safety benchmark.
In April 2023, the Rack Group, an IWS subsidiary based in Barnsley, conducted the barrier range tests. There, the design and manufacturing of the barriers occur. The team used a custom-built pendulum to strike the barriers at various points, assessing their resilience. They meticulously recorded the force each barrier withstood and the extent of its deflection using high-specification measuring equipment on-site.
Our Leaders’ Perspectives on Enhancing Impact Protection Standards
Commenting on what the testing means for customers, Susy Keating, MD at Brandsafe said, “This testing is an important step for customers looking to purchase impact protection barriers for their workplace. Knowing what impact forces a barrier can take, as well as ensuring that data is independently certified by a reputable third party, is a vital factor in choosing the right barrier.
For too long impact protection has been over-engineered, over-priced and overly complicated. It’s time to reset the bar on what impact protection ultimately comes down to, which is keeping people and products safe.”
Stuart Ovington, MD of Rack Group said, “TÜV Nord independently verifying that our testing abided by the PAS 13 guidelines serves as a testimonial to our teams here at IWS Group, as well as the quality of our polymer barrier range. Not every barrier manufacturer undertakes product testing to this level, so we are proud to be amongst the industry leaders.
Our barriers are shown to be high performing, long-lasting and can withstand greater impacts than similar, industry-leading products. In addition, we can create bespoke designs quickly to suit individual needs and, with short lead times, provide a cost-effective solution at the highest standard.”
Matt Mason, Group Design Manager at IWS Group added, “We undertook this activity to prove the capability of our barrier range and, with TÜV Nord witnessing, it confirms that our internal testing procedure adheres to the industry code of practice.
Testing is conducted on a purpose-built impact pendulum rig designed and commissioned entirely by IWS Group, which simulates real world impact energies of material handling vehicles travelling at different speeds and provides physical proof to the capability of our products. The pendulum strikes barriers at various pre-determined locations to measure the level of energy the barriers can withstand, how much deflection they display under impact and how much force is transferred to the ground fixings and concrete.
Testing also defines the distance behind barriers that is considered the ‘safe zone’ for the barrier to deflect in to, which is identified during installation of the barrier by visual floor markings. All testing was conducted with UKAS calibrated measuring equipment such as high-speed cameras, torque wrenches, load cells and industrial weigh scales to ensure confidence in every result witnessed.”
Elevating Safety Standards with Brandsafe® Barriers
As we conclude, it’s evident that IWS Group’s commitment to safety and innovation is redefining industry standards. The extensive testing of the Brandsafe® polymer safety barriers, endorsed by TÜV Nord’s certification, not only provides our customers with assurance of our product’s quality but also highlights our dedication to advancing safety technology.
Our goal is to offer solutions that are effective, simple, and accessible. With capabilities for bespoke designs and quick production, we cater to a variety of needs, ensuring each barrier we produce is not only a product but a commitment to safety and dependability.
The path to enhancing workplace safety is continuous, and at IWS Group, we are at the forefront. Through innovative testing methods and adherence to strict industry standards, we are not just meeting safety requirements but actively shaping them for a safer future.
Please feel free to request detailed technical data about the impact safety testing we have carried out on the Brandsafe® range and our approach to safety. Contact us at sales@brandsafeprotection.com for additional information.
As a business owner, your number one priority should be the health and safety of your employees. An unsafe workplace can potentially be disastrous, and it’s always better to prevent these issues rather than fix problems after they happen.
While there are a number of obvious signs your workplace is unsafe, there may be some that are either difficult to spot, or you’re so used to seeing them that you forget about them! We’ll discuss the key signs to look out for in your workplace.
Your Employees Aren’t Clued Up
One of the first things your employees should be made aware of is how to safely operate any machinery, know what the procedure is in the event of any incidents, and where all of the fire exits and first aid / medical stations are.
If your staff look confused or straight up tell you they don’t know (or worse, haven’t even been told) any health and safety procedures, this is a huge problem that needs rectifying with the appropriate training ASAP.
Your Existing Safety Measures Are Deteriorating
It’s all well and good installing measures such as safety barriers and guardrails, but if these were installed many years ago and have not been correctly maintained or inspected, it’s crucial that this issue is addressed immediately. The same goes for things like exposed wiring, rusting metals, and other elements of your workplace that could put employees’ health and safety at risk.
Lack of Correct PPE
If your staff are walking around without the necessary personal protection equipment for your workplace, this is naturally going to be a huge safety risk. Safety goggles, hard hats, and high-visibility protective clothing are all essential health and safety elements in many businesses, particularly in the manufacturing industry.
Regularity of Injuries
If it seems like every other day an employee is either injuring themselves in the workplace or becoming ill, then this may not be a coincidence. Old or run down equipment as well as unsanitary working conditions are key factors in employee sickness and injury. It’s a crucial legal requirement to ensure that all workers have access to a safe, sanitary environment.
Lack of Communication
Communication is a key part of any business, and when it comes to the safety of your workplace, this is no different. Whether verbal or written in the form of safety signage, if there is a lack of communication in your company, this is a clear sign that your workplace could be unsafe. After all, your employees should be regularly reminded of the health and safety protocol to ensure that everyone stays safe.
At Brandsafe, we’re a leading provider of high visibility impact protection and safety solutions for the industrial workplace. If you’d like to find out more about how we can help keep your workplace safe, contact us today.
IWS Group Announces Acquisition of Anco Storage Equipment Ltd
We’re very excited to announce our parent company, IWS Group, has acquired Anco Storage Equipment Ltd, the largest trade-only supplier of storage solutions in the UK.
Established in 1991 in West Sussex, Anco has gained an enviable reputation for quality and service at a competitive price. Exclusively through its trade-only distribution channel, Anco offers an extensive range of over 7,000 variations of products, covering all kinds of applications from industrial racking, multi-tier projects and mezzanine flooring, to office archive storage and modular shelving. Anco stores over £3M worth of stock in their warehouse to facilitate quick turn-around times on orders.
What does this mean for Brandsafe and its Customers?
Anco and its wealth of storage solutions is the perfect complement to IWS Group’s growing portfolio of innovative industrial workspace brands. This acquisition will no doubt further strengthen our product offering, resource, infrastructure, and capability, to provide our customers and partners with a complete warehouse lifecycle solution. In particular, for Brandsafe customers, it not only enhances our range offering, but provides a whole new category of products and services available to you.
Strengthening the IWS Group Portfolio
IWS Group is a rapidly growing family of market-leading product brands and service companies which provide essential supplies and services to the warehouse and logistics, material handling, and industrial sectors.
The group portfolio currently includes Beaverswood, Brandsafe, Rack Group, and now Anco.
“We’re thrilled to welcome Anco to the IWS family,” said Jeroen van den Berge, CEO of IWS Group, “Anco’s wealth of storage solutions, its team of specialists and its long history of building strong partnerships with its distributor network are the perfect complement to our growing portfolio of innovative industrial workspace brands. Our vision is to be the partner of choice for essential products & services throughout the lifecycle of an industrial building, and this acquisition is a natural progression towards this end.”
Beaverswood manufactures innovative products that improve the efficiency, safety, and sustainability of the physical workspace. The Beaverswood range of warehouse safety and management products includes labelling and signage, recycling solutions, identification products and visual communication solutions.
Rack Group is the UK’s leading provider of warehouse racking solutions that focus on prolonging the life and safety of racking. These solutions, which include racking inspection; repair; maintenance and training, are provided to many of the biggest household names across the UK. Its range of racking protection includes the market leading brand Rack Armour.
The overall footprint of a warehouse is rarely straightforward, creating challenges in managing traffic safety. So, it’s handy to know what to use when Armco Barriers can’t be installed.
One of the most widely used and effective ways to meet safety obligations on a warehouse site is Armco barrier installations wherever HGVs and LGVs operate. They are also used on countless public roads, as their clever design reduces driver injury and vehicle damage.
Armco is the safety product of choice not just for exits, entrances and approach roads, but also for many loading bays and yards.
However, this article looks at what to use when Armco Barriers can’t be installed. The truth is, there will be sections of your warehouse exterior and interior that are too complex or compact to accommodate the lengths of these recommended traffic safety products.
Creating or updating your impact protection strategy
Regular risk assessments across your site are vital for compliance and to reach your own company targets on safety. They also avoid damage to structures, vehicles and equipment that could lead to business interruption or big repair bills!
It could be that on your next site layout evaluation, you locate more places to install Armco barriers.
If you browse a comprehensive list of Armco warehouse products and accessories, you may be surprised by how versatile the range is. Including wall mounted Armco barriers, and various safety ends and caps that make the ImpactSAFE shock-absorbent sections practical to use where pedestrians pass by,
The advantages of Armco Barriers are well known. When correctly specified and installed, they are unrivalled in their ability to absorb impact and minimise vehicle damage. They are also robust and durable.
We make buying and installing Armco barriers inexpensive and easy too, including free advice on Armco barrier sizing and accessory lists.
What to use when Armco Barriers can’t be installed
It is not possible to rely entirely on this stellar safety product for all of your warehouse traffic management though. The biggest obstacle is often a lack of space to use these barriers, or a need to install a quick to amend safety system.
Fortunately, there are effective alternatives, such as the following.
Flexible Bollards
This is a low-cost impact safety product that enables you to be highly responsive in the way you install your traffic management aids.
Installing flexible bollards and delineators is quick and easy. Yet, they are excellent at creating a hi-vis boundary between vehicles and pedestrians or highlighting structural hazards and no-go zones.
If the flexible bollards do get hit or scuffed, they are engineered to flex, bend and crush, then return to their original shape.
Simple, but effective, they can be erected in a number of places, including compact areas where on and off-road vehicles do intricate manoeuvres.
Safety barriers for warehouses
There are other safety barriers for warehouses that are versatile alternatives to Armco barriers too. Including impact absorbent barriers you can erect where vehicles manoeuvre around sensitive structures or employee work areas.
Some warehouse safety barriers are heavy-duty metal, of course, and designed to protect pedestrians in a robust manner. There are also guards and handrails for warehouses that focus on human safety, rather than minimising vehicle damage in workplaces.
However, heavy-duty steel guard systems can ensure that vehicle impact doesn’t bring down major structures or racking or put drivers at risk of hitting electrical equipment, for example.
Advice on improving warehouse impact management
Many warehouse sites benefit from a mixture of Armco barriers for major inroads and loading bays, and more versatile alternatives in more compact operational zones.
Brandsafe is a leading stockiest of Armco products and solutions for when Armco Barriers can’t be installed.
If you are unsure how to configure both Armco barriers and alternative traffic safety features, we can help. Using our extensive experience – and problem-solving skills for even the most demanding and complex warehouse sites – we can ensure you create a compliant and efficient barrier system. This could be tailored specifically to your site layout, operations and risks, with well-managed costs too!
Ask us about previous project management of warehouse impact management strategies and installations.
Traffic management in workplaces is not simply about compliance with H&S rules. Some vehicle safety measures also help you to save on car repair bills with simple and cheap solutions.
It’s easy to think that only organisations dealing with HGVs and LGVs need to regularly review their private roads, car parks and vehicle exits/entrances. However, all workplaces need to source and install products that save on car repair bills with simple and cheap solutions.
That’s because you are likely to have a staff or visitor cars – or sales vehicles, for instance – moving around your premises. Plus, no one wants the embarrassment of an important customer reporting dented bodywork!
Being really thorough in the way you protect vehicles from damage serves another purpose too. It avoids business interruption if a car your organisation depends on is out of action to fix avoidable damage.
HSE rules on preventing vehicle damage
Before looking at the products you can buy to protect cars transiting your site, let’s explore the legal responsibilities you have to avoid accidents and incidents, using sensible traffic management systems.
Clearly, both off and on-road vehicles can do a lot of damage if they hit a pedestrian, even at low speeds. Also, collisions with other vehicles or workplace structures put drivers at risk. The simple act of manoeuvring into a parking space can be problematic in many environments.
For this reason, the Health & Safety Executive issued strict guidelines for workplace transport, including rules on parking safely on private and public sector sites.
Compliance hinges on a thorough risk assessment. This should especially focus on areas where vehicles and pedestrians are both on the move and key spaces where cars tend to carry out manoeuvres such as reversing.
Of course, there are also clear rules on limiting speed on commercial premises and the things you need to do to maintain your car park properly.
Simple, cheap measures to save on car repair bills
Prevention is always better than the cure, and that certainly applies if you want to stay compliant with workplace traffic management regulations and find ways to save on car repair bills with simple and cheap solutions.
Road and parking maintenance
The foundations of avoiding vehicle damage around your workplace are literally the foundations of your outside area! For instance, is the ground level, with good drainage? Relocating parking to firmer ground with less risk of wheels slipping could be a practical way to limit accidents and incidents.
Well mapped traffic flow and parking
This leads to the wisdom of reviewing how vehicles transit your site, and the spaces set aside for visitor and staff parking for example. Has it been strategically managed, or has it evolved over time?
You may want to refresh how vehicles move on-site and where they park if your business has become busier too.
Signage and lighting
These are both important measures in maintaining site safety and avoiding damage to vehicles.
There are many inexpensive traffic management signs you can buy to give drivers clear directions and safety information. As well as vital signs to segregate vehicles and pedestrians.
This also requires you to install good site lighting for darker or shorter days. Drivers need to be able to see signs, people, structures and road edges with ease. Do you also need hi-vis barriers along roadways and around car parks?
Staff and visitor guidance
Make your rules on safe parking and transit clear, and strictly enforced. This means training staff on your traffic management protocols and issuing pre-arrival instructions for site visitors.
Buy car wheel stops
This truly is a cheap but effective way to avoid vehicle damage! You simply need to buy and install car wheel stops to keep vehicles parked safely.
Clearly, these need to be clear to see! Our quality car wheel stops are designed to be robust, and quick to install, but also unmissable for both drivers and pedestrians.
Commercial site speed bumps
They are not always popular, but well-made speed bumps are a highly effective way to maintain site safety.
Find a supplier of quality domestic speed bumps suitable for cars, rather than heavy-duty traffic calming measures for lorries. You don’t want your speed bump to present a risk, rather than a way to avoid car damage.
We sell speed bump kits for cars (made from recycled truck tyres) that are versatile, low-cost, high quality and easy to install.
Help with traffic management measures
If you have a complex site or heavy traffic use to manage, it can be hard to know which safety products are best, and where to install them. This is also true if the layout of your roads, car parks, yards and loading bays is out of date or constantly changing.
Brandsafe would be pleased to provide a free survey to map out measures that improve your site safety and which save on business car repair bills.
This short installation guide will introduce you to the tools and steps required to install Armco barriers. We will also briefly run through the context and environment in which installing Armco barriers may be necessary or useful.
Where do You Need to Install Armco Barriers?
Armco barriers are perfect for any roads, car parks or warehouses that have slow traffic, as the armco barriers will be able to contain any damage to prevent any damage to buildings, machinery or pedestrians.
During installation, it is important to consider what could be damaged by a collision, and assess the likelihood of that collision taking place. It may also be useful to consider how fast the vehicle will be moving, the weight of the vehicle, and the angle of impact.
Not only are armco barriers built to protect features such as buildings in the event of a collision, they can also act as a visual warning to the driver. Often, armco accessories come with a bright yellow finish to make the barriers easy to spot. Armco barriers, when used alongside proper signage and markings, can warn drivers that there is a feature or obstruction ahead, and help them to avoid it.
Different risks and situations call for different armco safety barriers and accessories. Armco barriers that are curved or wall mounted may be used to fit around specific features or obstacles. They also come in a variety of sizes and heights, depending on the context and the size of the vehicles used in that area.
Here are the most common sizes:
560mm – to be installed internally in warehouses to protect smaller vehicles and keep people away from dangerous areas.
610mm – This is the industry standard, usually used in car parks and similar scenarios.
760mm & 1100mm – For larger vehicles such as lorries.
To figure out what parts you need, you can use a free online armco barrier calculator or give us a ring on +44 (0)1525 850222 for a quote.
Tools and Skills You May Need
When considering how to implement safety procedures such as armco barriers, it’s always best practice to get professional installation. This will ensure that the barriers are completely secure, and will properly prevent accidents. However, armco barriers are relatively simple to install, so if professional installation is not available, you should have no problem doing it yourself.
Tools
Drill / Screwdriver
Pegs
String Line
PPE
Spirit Level
Clamps
Spade / Digging Equipment
Cement
Cutter / Petrol Saw
The correct barrier length and parts (as mentioned above)
A minimum of two people
How to Install Armco Barriers
Step one: Joining
The main beam sections of the barrier can be bolted together using the pre-existing holes, where the barriers overlap. The barriers usually require M16 x 35mm fixings. Barriers usually come at a standard length, but if a shorter length is required ask an installer to cut down the barriers, ensuring new holes are drilled to line up with the other components.
Step Two: Posts
If you are installing onto an already level and secure concrete surface, you can use base plated posts. Alternatively, the posts will need to be concreted into the ground to make them secure. We recommend carrying out a survey or the ground conditions to ensure your barrier is being safely installed.
You will need three posts per barrier, with the post at the end of one barrier also serving as the first post of the next barrier. Corner sections will need two posts each. Again, there should already be pre-drilled holes, and this time you will need M16 x 50mm fixings to connect the posts to the main beam.
Step Three: Corners & Terminal Ends
Fix the corner and end pieces onto the armco beams. Armco safety barriers and accessories can be brought separately, allowing for you to personalise your safety barriers to suit the situation.
Brightly coloured armco accessories, such as an Armco Pedestrian Safety End, will reduce the risk of a safety hazard due to its visibility. Most armco barrier accessories can be retrofitted to steel Armco terminals, and can add extra buffers for absorbing impacts, such as Brandsafe’s innovative ImpactSAFE Buffers.
Armco barriers are an effective way of preventing damage to equipment or buildings, and protecting workers and the public. If you are still unsure about how to go about implementing your Armco barriers, or whether or not they are needed in your workplace, get free advice from our experts on +44 (0)1525 850222, sales@brandsafeprotection.com, or by contacting us through our website: https://www.brandsafeprotection.com/contact-us/
This blog post will cover the best practice for the installation of speed bumps, and general safety and regulations.
Speed bumps are often overlooked but they are essential to ensuring people’s safety. When installed correctly and in the appropriate environment, they have been proven to reduce the speed of vehicles. This is especially useful in areas where there are pedestrians or equipment that is at risk of being damaged.
Why do we need speed bumps?
According to HSE, The fatal injury rate in transportation and storage is around twice the All Industry rate.
There were 10 fatal injuries in 2020/21 in transportation and storage, in comparison with the annual average number of 13 fatalities for 2016/17-2020/21. 37% of deaths over the same five year period were classified as struck by a moving vehicle.
Speed bumps allow you to prevent these accidents by slowing down traffic and enforcing speed limits.
The Best Practice
Do you need speed bumps?
Investing in speed bumps and other safety equipment can help to develop more trust with employees, prevent the cost of employee accidents, and prevent damage to machinery.
You may want to consider installing speed bumps if you need to control the speed of vehicles or enforce speed limits in a private car park, especially around pedestrian walk ways.
Bear in mind that certain machinery or warehouse equipment cannot pass over bumps, such as large forklifts. They can also only be installed on roads where the speed limit is lower than 30mph, and at least 30 metres away from a zebra-controlled area.
How often do they need to be spaced out?
Speed bumps should be spaced out between 20 metres and 150 metres apart, with the average being around 70 metres. The longer the distance between them, the more likely vehicles are to speed up between bumps.
Required height and width
The average height is from 25 mm to 100 mm. The length should be 900mm at a minimum, and should not cover the entire road to allow other vehicles such as large emergency vehicles or bicycles to pass over the flat surface of the road.
The difference between commercial and domestic speed bumps, and which one you need
Commercial speed bumps are best for use in industrial workplaces. They are generally higher than domestic and reduce vehicles to a typical 10 mph operating speed.
Alternatively, domestic speed bumps are smaller in height and are best for use in car parks or areas where pedestrians are near. A typical 50mm speed bump reduces vehicles to an operating speed of 5 mph.
signs and lighting
Speed bumps should be clearly visible to avoid accidents or damage to vehicles. Most come with high quality yellow and black finish with diamond grade reflectors for night-time visibility, such as Brandsafe’s.
It is also advisable to make sure bumps are under clear lighting and have proper signage on the approach.
Installation Guide
You should be able to install a speed bump in less than an hour. Simply mark the area that you want the speed bump to be with chalk. Your speed bump should be placed at a right angle to an imaginary line that runs down the centre of the road.
Measure where the bolt would be inserted into the pavement, and drill holes for each bolt, ensuring to clean up the area afterwards. Next, place the speed bump in the marked area and fasten with the bolts, ensuring that you tighten the bolts securely to make sure the speed bump does not move when travelled over.
The installation of speed bumps are certainly worth considering as an effective way to enforce the speed limit. We hope this guide on the UK regulations helped you to understand more about the government recommendations. For more information, visit the HSE website or call Brandsafe by email at sales@brandsafeprotection.com or by phone on +44 (0)1525 850222.
The importance of Pedestrian Handrail Systems in the workplace can often be overlooked. However, besides being an essential part of customer safety, they can also a legal requirement. We will run through when and where handrails are required.
Slips, trips and falls are most likely to occur where there are potential trip hazards, slippery surfaces, or inefficient lighting. Safety Barriers & Guardrails are crucial to any working environment, but especially in high-risk environments, as other hazards may increase the chances of serious injury.
For example, whenever workers are expected to complete any activity at a height, handrails are recommended as part of The Work at Height Regulations (WAHR – 2005), and need to meet particular specifications in order to be compliant.
In a warehouse or factory environment, additional dangers such as sharp edges on moveable machinery, or risk of impact from forklifts or trucks, escalates the need for handrails. In this instance, pedestrians need to be separated from traffic to ensure that no one is hurt.
When you’re evaluating the best places to install handrails in your workplace, it’s important to take into consideration the following requirements.
The regulations for handrail and guardrail
The UK Building Regulations Approved Document K (Protection from Falling, Collision and Impact), states that a Guardrail must consist of two horizontal rails with a height of 1100mm (as a minimum), and need be able to withstand an equally distributed load of 0.74kN per metre, with a point load of 0.5kN.
The number of handrails required depends on the width of the staircase. For staircases over 1000mm wide you need a handrail on both sides of the stairs, and for staircases over 2000mm wide a divide is required.
If handrails are mounted to the wall, separate criteria apply. Wall-mounted handrails are required to be 50mm to 75mm off the wall, need to have a diameter of between 32mm and 50mm and be non-slip.
Best practices for safety
There are many areas of potential risk in the workplace where handrails are necessary to reduce the risk of accidents in the workplace. We would advise that you assess the following areas in the working environment to determine whether a simple handrail could prevent an injury:
Pedestrian walkways that come into contact with moving vehicles: Pedestrian Barriers (SEG / SEG+) prevent pedestrians from crossing the path of moving vehicles. This reduces the risk of impact or injury from heavy moving machinery, forklifts and trucks.
Around dangerous machinery: This can prevent cuts or grazes caused by sharp edges and moving parts.
To zone off restricted areas on the factory or warehouse floor: This keeps visitors or untrained workers from entering restricted areas and endangering themselves. This can be especially useful in areas where harmful chemicals are being used or stored.
In car parks and in front of main entrances: Barriers or bollards, like the ImpactSAFE Protection Post, prevent vehicles from rolling and endangering the general public, as well as your valued workers. Brandsafe’s Sign Post WRAP Protectors can also be used to prevent any damage to your vehicle in the event of an impact.
Summary: Where in the workplace are handrails required?
In the UK, the installation of handrails and guardrails is governed by several key laws and regulations. The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 establishes the legal framework requiring employers to ensure workplace safety, including the use of protective barriers. The Work at Height Regulations 2005 mandate guardrails in situations where there is a risk of falling from height. Additionally, the Building Regulations 2010 (Part K) legally enforce the need for handrails and guardrails on stairs, ramps, and platforms higher than 0.5 meters. The Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957 further reinforces the duty of care to ensure that premises, including safety installations like handrails, are safe for all users. Compliance with these regulations is essential to avoid legal penalties and ensure the safety of employees and visitors.
Finally, Health and Safety in the workplace is an important part of morale and trust between workers and their employers. By installing barriers that meet industry standards you can protect your workers from easily preventable falls or injuries. We recommend checking that your handrail systems are up to industry standards as soon as possible to ensure the best possible working conditions, and to meet all compliance criteria. Schedule a free Site Safety Audit today to assess your warehouse safety.
Looking for a safety product checklist for your business? This article will highlight the most important industrial safety products (also known as control equipment) that you need in a warehouse environment.
Industrial safety products help to ensure the wellbeing of your employees by providing protection from potential work hazards and preventing accidents. Whether that’s traffic safety & management, or protecting staff and visitors from hazardous chemicals.
The most common industrial hazards are caused by; manual handling, chemicals, machinery, working at heights and driving movable machinery. Use the checklist below to ensure you are taking every precaution necessary to keep your workplace a safe environment.
The top industrial safety products
Control equipment, (or industrial safety products,) are an essential part of employee safety and wellbeing in a warehouse environment. When implemented properly, it should be used in conjunction with controlling procedures, (such as supervision and maintenance,) and correct worker behaviours (ensuring workers follow the procedures).
Proper control equipment takes on many forms and is dependent on what types of health hazards exist in your working environment. It can include improving pedestrian safety or providing racking protection.
Here are our recommendations of the most important industrial safety products, depending on the scenario:
Manual handling
Manual handling accidents often happen when a worker is attempting to manoeuvre a heavier or larger object than they can realistically manage. Providing equipment to assist manual handling can prevent workers from attempting to move an object in an unsafe way.
Manual handling aids like sack trucks, trollies and dollies are good examples of equipment that may prevent employee strain. It’s important to train any manual handling workers on good handling techniques for lifting and carrying, such as good posture and maintaining a good hold on the load.
It is also important to protect the equipment being used within manual handling roles. Warehouse racking protection is an effective solution to limiting bumps and scuffs from trucks and trolleys. For example, Rack Armour is proven to reduce racking damage by up to 80%.
We recommend using a highly visible and impact-resistant product to ensure the safest environment possible.
Chemicals
The most common way for chemicals to cause accidents in a workplace is through inhalation of contaminated air.
However, some chemicals can also permeate the skin and can enter the body through the eyes. PPE is essential to protect against contact with hazardous chemicals. This can include anything from eye protection to gloves.
Safe storage of chemicals is also essential; you have up to date storage equipment with good ventilation, placed strategically in the workplace. Bollards & delineators, (such as these Pedestrian Safety Barriers) strategically placed around hazardous chemical storage stations are recommended, to keep the public, or untrained workers, away from danger.
Machinery
PPE is also frequently used when operating machinery. For example, we suggest wearing earmuffs or earplugs when operating loud machinery and wearing the correct clothing to prevent clothes from becoming caught in the machines.
Wearing the appropriate clothing can also reduce the risk of serious harm in the event of impact from forklifts or lorries, and installing Guardrail Systems can prevent any danger of impact to pedestrians.
To ensure the protection of warehouse equipment, specialist safety guards can be put in place. For example, electric vehicles are becoming increasingly popular, and are a significant investment; but EV charging point protection can be a cost-effective way of protecting valuable hanging stations.
Working at heights
Guardrail Systems are also useful for working at heights, to prevent workers from slipping or falling. We recommend training employees for working at heights on the possible risks and the correct precautions to take to prevent accidents.
Wearing the correct PPE, such as non-slip footwear, is also essential.
Driving movable machinery
When driving moveable machinery it is important to protect surrounding pedestrians, as well as other equipment that the machinery may come into contact with.
Sharp edges on the machinery can cause cuts or abrasions, and there is a risk of being struck or injured by moving parts. Pedestrian Safety Barriers can be useful here too, in addition to the use of Column & Post Protection to prevent damage to your machinery.
These preventative measures are both effective and essential when working in a potentially hazardous environment.
Providing a safe environment for your workers is not only a legal duty but can also contribute to the success of your business; especially when considering the impact of a bad reputation or bad public relations.
Terminology, ratings and product categories can make choosing the right pedestrian barriers for your workplace challenging. This guide directs you along the right path.
The best safety barriers & guardrails are ones manufactured to meet the highest traffic safety standards. That is the only way to avoid workplace injuries to staff or visitors, and stay compliant with H&S legislation. However, choosing the right pedestrian barriers can be tricky as there are different types.
For example, do you need a heavy-duty option with a reliable degree of impact absorbance? Which are the best high-vis foot traffic guides, especially on the edges of off-road vehicle routes?
As there are now pedestrian barriers designed and manufactured to fit various locations and levels of activity in workplaces, you need to find the most appropriate one to manage each risk.
For example, some barriers are specifically designed for areas where HGVs and HLGVs operate, and others slot perfectly into warehouse interiors to segregate your workforce and forklift trucks.
Do you know which products provide a handrail as pedestrians transition between ground level and mezzanine floors, or up steps? Also, there are specific pedestrian barriers to stop people from getting too close to sensitive or dangerous equipment in your workplace, or to ensure they don’t bump into racking systems.
To add to your understanding of this important traffic management issue, we have gathered information on the best pedestrian barriers.
Pedestrian Handrail Systems
Safety barriers & guardrails don’t just direct foot traffic along a set route by providing pedestrians with a visual indicator of danger. They also offer pedestrians a firm barrier to hold on to in areas that present a trip, slip or fall risk.
The best pedestrian handrails are suitable to use internally or externally and come in an easy to assemble modular form. That way, they can be used for diverse locations and risks.
For instance, to manage safety in:
• Car park walkways
• Exits and entrances
• Uneven pathways and internal floors
• Multi-level flooring
• Manufacturing and engineering spaces (guiding pedestrians away from machinery)
• Work areas close to electrical equipment or other incursion hazards.
Pedestrian Safety Barriers (SEG+)
Pedestrian safety barriers (SEG+) have been designed and manufactured to give an advanced level of protection in areas where industrial vehicles operate. They come in yellow/black to identify hazardous situations, and accessories include Pedestrian Sprung Return Gates and Demountable Shoe Plates. This makes it easy to create a practical flow of pedestrians around your site, without letting them stray into the path of moving machinery, for example.
How else could you use this type of pedestrian barrier?
• Preventing encroachment on LV and IT Cabinets.
• Managing the risks from walking on and off mezzanine floors.
Places where off-road vehicle traffic is most intensive and risky for pedestrians demand specially designed barriers. Particularly guard rails able to withstand impact from Material Handling Equipment (MHE) and Powered Industrial Trucks (PIT).
A heavy-duty steel guard rail system can avoid serious workplace accidents, and of course fatalities. Though it is recommended that you find versions with foam gaskets as standard (underneath the base rail) to prevent dirt and debris gathering, Also, closed-cell construction resists corrosion from guardrail cleaning processes.
Apart from segregating people and off-road vehicles and machinery, what other purpose do they serve?
• By opting for destacker extensions for your steel guard rails, you can increase the height to around 3000mm, for shielding high-level racking or pallet stacks.
• The same height increase can make these products ideal to guard heavy-duty machinery.
Armco Barrier Systems
Armco safety barriers are the gold standard for traffic management on public as well as private roads. Their distinctive and ingenious design creates an impressive degree of impact absorbency.
When using them to help keep drivers and pedestrians safe on your worksite, Armco Pedestrian Safety Ends come highly recommended.
These safety ends provide an essential layer of protection if pedestrians inadvertently come into contact with your Armco barriers. The yellow or black safety ends prevent damage to limbs, torsos or clothing.
More insights on choosing the right pedestrian barriers
With all the different options available, it can be difficult knowing which pedestrian barrier is suitable for your site. This guide has outlined several popular pedestrian barriers, their features, and applications.
With this in mind, we hope this blog has helped you understand how to choose the right pedestrian barriers to properly protect pedestrians on and around your premises.
Finding ways to protect your staff, visitors and workplace safety record is now a fundamental daily business practice. We’ve put together some steps to take to help you foster a safe workplace culture – from simple yet effective workplace safety products, to a full workplace safety checklist.
Statistics on workplace accidents in the UK highlight that more needs to be done to protect people in their place of employment. Particularly in high-risk work environments, where site visitors are also vulnerable to injury.
The figures on workplace safety failures are still shocking when you consider the low-cost safety products and simple measures that could reduce their numbers significantly. According to the HSE, 142 workers were killed ‘on the job’ and 441,000 sustained injuries at work in 2020/21.
Serious issues of this nature are also bound to create residual effects like business interruption, productivity reduction, costs and loss of reputation too. Further emphasising that there is no room for complacency.
So, let’s revisit the fundamental steps needed to build workplace safety and create a safe working environment.
1. Regular meetings on workplace safety
Weekly safety meetings on protection and compliance issues could involve working through your workplace safety checklist.
It’s important to discuss roles and responsibilities for checking and maintaining such things as:
Placement and integrity of pedestrian safety products. Have new trip, slip or fall hazards arisen, or could incursion on new or infrequently used machinery create a risk?
Workloads and priorities for the week that could impact the site’s use of traffic safety products. Do you need to update or move safety barriers for example?
Training your staff properly when it comes to workplace safety, should absolutely be a priority. However, your efforts to create site-wide safety processes and procedures can be undone by an employee who unwittingly breaches them.
To mandate against momentary lapses in memory and concentration, constant safety awareness refreshers are needed. Alongside signage and information to constantly remind your team about potential risks and the best ways to avoid them.
3. Partnering with occupational clinicians
To be confident that you have managed every risk at your workplace decisively – and your staff are fully aware of the role they play – bringing in outside expertise is a wise approach.
Especially for places like busy warehouses, factories, and engineering and chemical plants, where operations are intense, complex and ever-shifting.
4. Constant checks on safety tools and regular equipment inspections
It is highly recommended that you create – and regularly update – a comprehensive list of all the tools and equipment you use to manage workplace safety. Including timescales for any replacements or inspections.
In a busy workplace, you can never assume everything is where it should be. It is advisable for safety officers to do spot checks frequently, to make sure equipment is instantly available to create a speedy and decisive response to safety issues.
5. Employee welfare measures – and breaks
This is one element of workplace safety that can get overlooked in periods of intense pressure or change. It comes down to creating a nurturing workplace culture in which employee health is a priority. You get staff who are more alert, energised and aware of their own obligations.
It could be as simple as encouraging 5 minute breaks for warehouse operatives or office staff, to ease muscle tension and loosen joints. This, in turn, reduces the potential for repetitive strain injuries.
6. Encourage employee discussion
This too is a cultural aspect of workplace safety 101. If you operate on the basis of ‘no blame, no shame’ and encourage staff to speak up about issues promptly, you have a better chance of tackling potential safety problems quickly.
Are your staff encouraged to flag up safety concerns and suggestions?
The big picture on workplace safety
This workplace safety 101 guide shows that companies need to balance overarching risk management, with drilling down on ways to mitigate against even the smallest site hazards. Including the issues that crop up when your organisation’s priorities, layout or processes change slightly.
Brandsafe has worked in partnership with architects and specifiers to create and maintain efficient and safe workspaces worldwide. Including via our RIBA-approved CPD seminars that keep industrial areas, warehouses, logistics and distribution centres updated.
HSE regulations on workplace traffic management are clear. So, why do accidents still happen? In this guide, we share tips on how to prioritise warehouse pedestrian safety measures that must be constantly reviewed.
The Green Cross Code Man, the King of the Road Hedgehog and Tufty the squirrel are among the historic campaigns to keep the public safe on UK roads. The techniques used to manage and prioritise warehouse pedestrian safety are far less colourful, but an urgent, everyday necessity.
In fact, it comes down to not only raising awareness among site personnel and visitors but also installing and regularly reviewing solid and dependable pedestrian safety products.
The problem comes if any of these traffic management systems have been overlooked or gone out of date. It puts the people moving around your premises at risk of injury, or even death.
In the past three years, 65% of injuries caused by forklift trucks involved pedestrians, people not directly using that off-road vehicle. That includes accidents affecting co-workers, supervisors and warehouse delivery personnel.
To make sure you don't add to those statistics, what more can you do at your warehouse?
Legal obligations for warehouse pedestrian safety
The HSE takes warehouse pedestrian safety very seriously and provides clear guidelines for how to segregate moving vehicles and machinery from people walking around your site.
The location and design of these pedestrian safety measures must be based on a thorough risk assessment that is regularly updated.
The basic legal principles are that you must be able to show that traffic management systems enable pedestrians and vehicles to stay on clearly designated routes, with active separation measures, clear signage and distinct operational areas, paths and walkways.
Additional safety risks to focus on
Your legal and moral duties include giving special consideration to areas where any vehicles and pedestrians converge. Including around exit and entry points, such as warehouse loading bays.
Also, your risk assessment for warehouse pedestrian safety issues must regularly focus on things like:
• Locations with reduced visibility due to structural features.
• Times when there may be reduced visibility at key points within your premises.
• Areas where heavy loads (or possibly weather conditions) can impact braking ratios for HGVs.
• The potential for background noise to reduce pedestrian and driver awareness of risk.
• The need to create a safe distance between pedestrians and vehicles in compact or complex locations.
What installations make you compliant?
There are many simple but effective ways to manage and prioritise warehouse pedestrian safety that should be already in place. Such as clear road markings to segregate pedestrians and raised kerbs to prevent vehicle incursion in risk-sensitive places.
Personnel should be constantly reminded of their obligations to remain alert to traffic safety issues, with training, and regular information updates.
What else can you do to keep personnel and visitors safe in your warehouse, where off-road and HGV/LGV vehicles operate?
Suppliers of reliable and effective Pedestrian Safety Products can make sure that you have planned and executed tangible traffic safety measures, site-wide
Including fundamentally crucial options such as Armco barriers along busy routes. There are other versatile Pedestrian Safety Barriers that can be installed to create clear, physical separation too.
Also, installing and updating Pedestrian Handrail Systems can manage your risks better. These are an ideal way to keep forklift trucks and pedestrians apart and provide the added bonus of managing trips, slips and falls.
Keep in mind that sourcing safety barriers and handrails made of quality materials is crucial. Their presence is a warning and guide, but the best pedestrian safety products also provide valuable impact absorption. Making injury less likely when collisions do occur.
Also, finding adaptations such as pedestrian sprung return gates and demountable shoe plates can ensure you have solid traffic management systems that are practical in their application.
Sourcing the best lamp post protection options can help you to ‘shed light’ on ways to reduce injuries and vehicle damage when a momentary lapse results in a collision.
It’s ironic that though the vertical structures – such as column & post protectors – around a warehouse site often serve fundamental and vital safety functions, at the same time they can be a source of serious workplace risks too.
The best example is workplace lamp posts to light the way for off-road and HGV/LGV vehicles travelling around your site. As well as to help pedestrians see clearly when visibility is poor.
Unfortunately, the presence of these important safety measures can cause substantial problems if a driver misjudges distance or has a momentary lapse in concentration. This can result in driver injury but also costly damage to vehicles if they make substantial contact with posts on commercial premises.
This makes it important to do regular risk assessments of your site structures, including exploring the best lamp post protection options – items that can help you to stay compliant to H&S rules and on-site traffic safety management too.
Why replace lighting posts, when you can protect them?
By sourcing the best lamp post protection options, you not only minimise the likelihood of human injury and vehicle damage, but you could also save yourself time, money and hassle.
If vehicles do bump into or scrape lamp posts, the cost of repairing or replacing a faulty structure can be considerable. When in fact, there are cheap lamp post protection products that you can fit in minutes. Then quickly replace after scuffs and bangs, at very little cost.
A compelling example is Brandsafe’s Lamp Post WRAP Protector products. These work on an ingenious clam-shell principle – they are engineered from Polyethylene with a highly absorbent but durable high-density foam core.
The versatile lamp post protectors from Brandsafe are adaptable to different lighting posts sizes. You also have the option of stacking lamp post projectors to manage the impact from HGVs and other more substantial collision risks.
As you would expect from a leading warehouse safety product, they are engineered in highly visible colours and incorporate diamond grade, reflective bands. This can be valuable when your lighting system is not on, but weather conditions reduce visibility and make your upright structures less obvious.
You can choose your own colour for lamp post guards from Brandsafe, to support either corporate branding or your bespoke ways of indicating different work zones or hazards.
Other systems to shield upright structures
When finding a supplier of workplace lamp post protectors, you should also consider options to shield other vertical structures with impact absorption materials. It could be time to assess all your other posts and columns, to make sure your safety measures are adequate and up to date.
This doesn’t only require you to focus on the obvious workplace risk areas, such as loading bay columns and posts though. For example, are there signposts and bay markers in your staff or visitor car park that are leaving you exposed to an accident or failed HSE inspection?
Purchasing cost-effective Sign Post WRAP Protectors gives you the same benefits as the lamp post protector products mentioned above. Including coming in a kit form, to make them quick and easy to fit around a variety of post types.
Among the structural safety products warehouses need, are PolyWRAP to shield warehouse columns and highly effective PolyWRAP Forklift Impact Skirts. These crucial warehouse items are highly adaptable to different structural shapes and sizes.
The universal benefit of all of these post and column guards is their impact absorption, but also the fact their presence makes structures more visible. Making them doubly important to protect your safety record, as well as your vertical surfaces!
Risk assessing the routes HGVs take across your site involves evaluating different weather conditions and times of the day, then responding decisively to avoid or manage HGV blind spots.
A third of road traffic accidents in the UK involve someone who is working, according to the Work-Related Road Safety Task Group. Suggesting a horrific total of 20 deaths and 250 serious injuries every week, linked to someone doing their job.
These figures illustrate how urgent it is to increase the safety standards applied to all on and off-road vehicles used for commercial purposes. Including finding ways to prevent accidents related to HGV blind spots.
Have you heard of UNECE Regulation 46, which governs aspects of vehicle design? It is based on safety principles developed by Loughborough University. By 2029, this will be the standard applied to all HGVs sold in Europe. It fundamentally changes the minimum amount of direct vision that HGV designs must include.
(Direct vision is facilitated largely by window size, whereas indirect vision is provided by mirrors fitted to vehicles.)
This new vehicle design standard will save an estimated 550 lives annually, across Europe.
In the meantime, there are clearly steps employers must take to support HGV drivers, and enhance both direct and indirect vision. Particularly in premises that require them to navigate around structures and pedestrians not normally present on open roads.
This is our guide to things you may be overlooking when considering HGV blind spots.
Think HGV 24/7
No matter how well trained HGV drivers are, there are times when their skills are put to the test, especially around busy warehouse environments. A risk assessment must cover potential risks – and blind spots – throughout the working day, and year!
Some measures are obvious, such as using safety products to segregate pedestrians and vehicles. However, you also need to consider those brief moments when people or structures aren’t covered by direct or indirect vision. Something that can happen not just due to the position of the vehicle, but also environmental factors such as poor light, or even sudden bursts of sunlight.
Eventualities and factors that could create a vision deficit also include:
• Pillars where vehicles reverse, which are not clear when it’s dark and raining.
• Low walls below window level for HGV cabs and out of mirror view.
• People or structures off-centre, directly to the left or right, and obscured by the cab frame.
• Situations and structures behind HGVs, not apparent or clear in mirrors when reversing.
Awareness, then action
Making drivers and employees aware of potential blind spots on your site, and possibly changing the areas in which HGVs operate, is just part of the solution.
You also need to source safety products that manage blind spots. Which is something BrandSafe is highly experienced in.
What sort of installations can reduce risks created by HGV blind spots?
Landing plates
HGV Landing Plates need to be high-vis, to help drivers position trailers accurately and safely.
The yellow high-grade polymer in our plates also protects the concrete surfaces, which can erode due to heavy-duty movement and loading activities. However, it’s vital to specify landing plates that have chamfered edges, and that can be installed easily but seamlessly. This ensures that your HGV directional aids don’t become a trip hazard!
Wheel guides
HGV Cranked Dock Wheel Guides and straight dock wheel guides are another inexpensive and easy way to assist HGVs to manoeuvre confidently and safely.
Our wheel guides – in a choice of height options – have vibrant yellow nose cones to improve driver visibility. As well as being a way to protect vehicle wheel trims while HGV’s park on raised level loading docks.
Column guards, Armco barriers and more
Once you’ve drilled down on products for loading bay protection, there are more ways to safeguard people and structures. For example, fitting wraps to posts and columns to absorb impact or adding Armco safety barriers to approach roads.
Flexible bollards and delineators keep HGVs travelling along routes where visibility is more assured.
At the very least, wheel stops can give your drivers a guide to ‘no go’ areas, and clatter bars can warn them of height obstacles they may not see quickly enough.
See the risk, and respond fast
Even a quick glance at our loading bay protection range shows there are robust and reliable ways to mitigate against HGV blind spots in that area of your site. As well as plenty of ways of supporting driver visibility and vehicle risks site-wide.
Safety equipment on work premises doesn’t get more vital than traffic management systems. Our guide to Armco crash barriers brings you ‘up to speed’ on preventing vehicle accidents.
You might be wondering, what is an Armco barrier? Well, where traffic management and driver safety are crucial – from challenging farmland to major motorways – you are likely to see Armco Crash Barriers. They are an industry-standard thanks to their incredible engineering and superb track record for reducing traffic accident injuries.
As they are the first choice for crash barriers, the big question is, have you got your Armco products placed in enough situations to safeguard drivers on your premises? Also, is this vital traffic safety product configured to keep you compliant with H&S legislation?
Keep in mind crash barriers also protect important structures at your workplace too. This helps you to avoid big repair bills and business interruption. Not to mention vehicle damage repair costs!
To help you ring fence these important safety priorities for the coming year, here are our tips on buying Armco crash barriers.
Site vulnerabilities risk assessment
To find the best places to install Armco products, you need to think about worst-case scenarios. Gauge where a moment’s distraction or a haphazard incident could put people or property at risk.
Consider environmental factors too, as the weather or time of day can impact visibility. Even low autumn sunlight can blind drivers.
To be honest, it’s wise to invest in crash barriers right along the route traffic takes on your premises. It’s a belt and braces approach to traffic management if you like.
Keep in mind too that the very presence of Armco crash barriers (with their fluorescent yellow accessories) can prevent collisions from occurring. So why not go site-wide?
It can be cost-effective to place large orders of Armco products that match your site’s unique layout, including enough safety ends and cap posts to make your structures streamlined.
Are there alternatives to Armco?
This is the most reliable and respected range of crash barriers and accessories, and to buy alternatives risks compromising on your vital safety targets.
What makes Armco crash barriers stand out is their distinctive and ingenious grooved design. This is expertly engineered to absorb substantial amounts of energy from collisions.
So, despite their simplistic appearance the corrugated steel sections – when installed correctly and pinned with strong posts – are literally life savers. They also minimise vehicle damage.
Why take ‘shortcuts’, when Armco products are a ‘direct route’ to site safety for cars, LGVs, HGVs and off-road vehicles?
Which Armco products are best?
Apart from specifying different heights of Armco crash barriers to create a strategic configuration, there are other ways to adapt this classic safety product to your operational needs.
One of your options include Armco wall mounted safety barriers. These can be installed on brick, block or precast concrete walls, to reduce the damage done by collisions. Our wall-mounted Armco crash barriers include an ImpactSAFE shock absorber, to enhance their performance.
Another highly recommended crash barrier option are the Armco 360 Safety Barriers. The height of these is lower than most other products in this category (360mm) and they have distinctive forklift impact rails.
They do an amazing job in warehouse settings, to help off-road vehicle drivers navigate around confidently and safely.
You can buy accessories to finish off Armco configurations to prevent clothing snagging, scratches or worse injuries, when someone brushes against them
You will find the bright coloured Armco safety ends and safety corners are also a vivid way to avoid anyone tripping over your crash barriers. This ensures crash barriers don’t become a hazard in their own right!
Specifying Armco crash barriers
This crash barriers guide shows that though Armco products are simply the best and fundamental in design, there are numerous decisions to make. If you want your site traffic management and safety record to be flawless.
This is why companies with large or complex sites and approach roads turn to BrandSafe for free advice on Armco crash barrier layouts.
In fact, we can help any organisation to ‘bend’ this long-standing safety product range to their requirements.
With the start of the new year, now is the perfect time to reassess your industrial safety equipment requirements – get the new year off to a good and safe start with us as we explore the industrial safety products you should consider for 2022.
Reviewing your products
Before we dive into the industrial safety products that you will want to prioritise in 2022, first let’s think about how you will know what you need. It is important to regularly review your current industrial safety equipment – so take the opportunity to look at this now! You should also take this time to think about what you might need going forward, both new products and those which you have now that may need replacing. From this point, you will be able to find the right products and impact protection services for you.
Pedestrian safety
Pedestrian safety is more important than ever in the current times. With COVID-19 restrictions having eased, there will be more foot traffic in your workplace than in the past nearly two years. Now that there will be more people around, you need to consider how pedestrians can co-exist in your space with heavy machinery and equipment.
One of the best ways to keep pedestrians safe is with safety barriers and guardrails. These keep pedestrians in clearly delineated zones, keeping pedestrian routes separated from routes that are used by vehicles. EdgeWRAP is another essential part of protecting pedestrians, softening hard edges and protecting pedestrians from hurting their heads or limbs and protecting exposed edges from suffering damage, too.
Armco accessories
Armco accessories are simple but effective when it comes to impact protection, which can help to save you from both damage and costs later on down the line. Armco provides safety barriers for both your inside and outside spaces, as well as end protection and post caps. These help to keep edges from sustaining damage and can help to save you money on those unexpected yet costly bumps and accidents that can happen in a busy warehouse setting. They also have options that are highly visible to help you to see the impact protection in dimmer areas.
Bollards and delineators
Protecting your investment in workplace infrastructure might seem like a difficult job, but it is easier with bollards and delineators. These are perfect for areas of heavy traffic, keeping bollards clearly defined and delineated and separating areas. This also keeps traffic from being too close together, which can in itself cause problems and potential vehicle damage. There are many different types of bollards, from those that drop down to those that remain in place. They are available in classic black and yellow, but also in other colours such as red and white, to suit your specific area and needs. These high visibility products are ideal for car park areas, as well. There are even heavy-duty bollards suitable for warehouses with large equipment or coach areas.
Flexible delineator accessories
Delineators are an excellent way to keep your warehouse or car parks safe, but you will also need to think about some accessories which can help to increase and enhance the protection they offer. Flexible signage is useful for vehicle parking areas, as you can use them to show that an area is suitable for vehicles used by disabled staff or visitors – or use them to highlight a parking space that should be used for an electric vehicle. These not only prevent damage to vehicles when encroached upon, but they also provide clarity for visitors or staff.
Safety barriers & guardrails
Safety barriers are not just for pedestrians who work onsite, they also help to protect visitors and warehouse infrastructure from impact damage. You can keep your warehouse areas clearly defined and your traffic safety management clear and easy, reducing the chances of accidents in 2022.
As we have seen, these are a range of industrial safety products that you should invest in for 2022 in order to keep your environment safe and protected from those unfortunate accidents. If you want to upgrade and update your current safety products, get in touch with BrandSafe to see how we can help you to keep it safe in 2022 and beyond.
When you think about impact protection, you may not be aware of how important it is. Impact protection is required to prevent wear and tear, damage and accidents in warehouse settings, saving you money in the long run.
Why do we need impact protection products?
Impact protection is a vital part of the warehouse environment. You know that warehouses are busy and accidents can happen – and frequently do, even with the best safety measures in place. These accidents, even minor ones, can cause damage to equipment and even the building itself, which can be expensive. Aside from the inconvenience and expense of property damage, it is also possible that personal injuries will occur, which is something you always want to avoid.
How do you know what type of impact protection you need?
There are many different kinds of impact protection, but how can you be sure that you are getting the right kind for your own environment? The first and most important step in finding out is to carry out a risk assessment. A risk assessment can help to identify potential hazards in your working environment, both to property and people, and some of these will require impact protection. By implementing strong and appropriate impact protection, the chances of accidents occurring are reduced. Not only that but when incidents do occur, the severity of them is also lessened.
Different types of impact protection
As we have mentioned, there are many different impact protection options available to you. The kind you need will depend on the area that needs to be protected, and whether there is a high or low chance of impact occurring. For example, if you have a warehouse with many vehicles, there is a higher chance of impact occurring, however, this will be reduced if you have areas that are designated for pedestrian use only.
Corner and edge protection is a good example of impact protection that may be necessary for wall corners and edges that could experience fairly low impacts. Of course, if you are in an area with exposed pallet racking, you know that these areas often see high levels of impact. In this case, you would want to invest in heavier-duty impact protection, such as Rack Armour, which has been proven to reduce the damage done to racking by as much as 80%, protecting both the vehicles in your warehouse and your materials or products.
Important things to remember
There are some other vital things that you need to remember when you are considering impact protection, such as how visible it needs to be. This will again depend on the area it is needed in. While all impact protection tends to be highly visible for safety purposes, some colours are more visually striking than others. Impact protection is usually available in yellow and black, but you can choose some appropriate for various “zones” of your warehouse, in green/white or red/white, with some variations available. If you are protecting an outside space or car park, some impact protection has reflective designs, such as car park bollards, which further improve the level of visibility. This is also excellent for those who use these spaces in the evening or early morning when there is less natural light.
Improving safety standards
Impact protection can be used to improve safety standards in a variety of ways. As safety standards are increasing, this is highly important. Carrying out the initial risk assessment helps you to identify what you need to improve safety, also allowing you to note any areas that are lacking. By implementing impact protection, you are also taking the time to illuminate dangers before they occur and to educate your staff on the importance of what impact protection is there for and what it means. BrandSafe is a UK based impact protection specialist and offers a wide range of high-quality impact protection equipment and impact protection services, suitable for your environment.
As we have seen, impact protection is a vital part of the warehouse environment, both for identifying and reducing risks and the chances of accidents. If you want discover a range of impact protection options, get in touch and shop all impact protection products with UK company BrandSafe.
There are some essentials that you need to be aware of when thinking of health and safety within a warehouse environment. One of the most important things to consider is how you can improve warehouse visibility – here, we will look at how you can do this with Brandsafe.
Why is warehouse visibility important?
A warehouse can be a difficult environment to navigate, both for pedestrians and those working with vehicles such as forklifts. With a range of workers focusing on different areas, stacks of materials, and heavy-duty machinery, there are many areas where health and safety issues become more prevalent.
Providing full training and guidance to employees is a vital way to create a safer environment, but you can improve this further by increasing warehouse visibility. Ensuring that every space is well delineated and protected allows employees to see each area more clearly and creates a safer working environment for everyone, decreasing the number of accidents in the workplace. So how can you ensure that you have the best possible visibility?
Safety barriers/guardrails
Safety barriers and/or guardrails can be used to help improve the visibility of potential hazards whilst also protecting warehouse infrastructure from sustaining damage. They can help to reduce the number of collisions that occur in a busy warehouse environment. Pedestrian safety barriers are available in black and yellow to highlight areas where it is safe for employees to walk uninterrupted by equipment or vehicles, while yellow guardrail systems allow a more heavy-duty separation between machinery and pedestrians. These are essential for any warehouse setting, as they can also be used to separate pallets or stacked items from forklifts or other vehicles, preventing materials from being damaged by accidental collisions.
Bollards
Another excellent way of creating more visibility in the warehouse is with bollards. These create delineation and protect certain areas of your warehouse. Made from sturdy steel and polyurethane, Brandsafe bollards come in a range of colours to suit your warehouse, each providing a high level of visibility while also keeping areas of your warehouse separated and secure. These are especially essential if you have heavy-duty machinery, or need to block off part of your warehouse for pedestrians or smaller vehicles. For example, a drop core bollard can be used when you need it, with reflective elements for extra safety. There are many different types of bollards to suit your needs.
Bollards are also a good idea as sometimes collisions do occur, and they are designed to be able to absorb the shock of being knocked by a vehicle.
Column protectors
Another example of items that can help increase visibility is column protectors, which help make the columns more visible to pedestrians and vehicles to avoid collisions. These protectors create a barrier around columns both inside and outside your warehouse setting. The bright colours increase the likelihood of a column being seen from vehicles, and they are also designed to absorb the impact of unexpected collisions. This also helps to protect the structure of your warehouse, as these column protectors keep supportive elements of your warehouse secure. These are quick and easy to install and can be stacked in a straightforward manner, allowing for maximum visibility from all heights of vehicles, as well as from the ground. They can also be used outside on lampposts to allow for improved visibility in the areas surrounding your warehouse, ideal for incoming vehicles and pedestrians moving around the outer area.
As we have seen, visibility in the warehouse is of high importance, both financially and for security purposes. It can help to improve health and safety overall, keeping workers and equipment secure and lowering the risk of injury and damage.
Implementing such measures as safety barriers and column protectors can help with this – if you are looking for new ways to improve visibility in your warehouse environment, you can do so with BrandSafe’s variety of health and safety products.
In the long term, incorporating these products into your warehouse can help to save money on possible damage later on down the line, and prevent injuries from occurring. There are items to suit every kind of warehouse and every budget, so check out our full BrandSafe range for high quality products to keep your environment safer.
Have you thought about your traffic management system? There are some essentials you need for it, such as car park stops. Here, we will look at what car park stops are and what you need depending on the vehicle type.
What are car park stops?
Car park stops are, simply put, wedges of material that are placed in the path of wheels in order to prevent a vehicle from moving forwards. BrandSafe has a range of car park stops to suit every business and many wheel types – so you can keep safe and efficient.
Why do you need car park stops?
Car park stops (otherwise known as wheel stops) are a must-have for your traffic management systems. They are used to help protect pedestrians, and to ensure that your worksite is safe and well ordered. When used in conjunction with bollards and potentially even speed bumps, they help to control the movement of vehicles, which is especially useful in construction or warehouse environments, when a vehicle moving unexpectedly could have very serious consequences to both people and your workplace itself.
They keep vehicles from moving and allow them to move in an ordered flow when appropriate. In fact, wheel stops are a highly important part of your overall health and safety.
But what wheel stops do you need for your own vehicles? Read on to find out.
HGV wheel stops
It is very important to have the appropriate precautions in place when it comes to HGVs. Heavy goods vehicles often contain a large amount of materials, which means keeping them in place is of the utmost importance, ensuring the safety of the driver, the vehicle itself, any pedestrians around, and the area the vehicle is in. Not to mention the goods contained within the vehicle.
In this case, you will require a larger wheel stop, and BrandSafe’s design is 150mm high and 1000mm long to accommodate the size of HGV wheels. With a hi-vis strip, these wheel stops have excellent visibility for both pedestrians and drivers. These stops work for a range of vehicles, such as double-deckers, coaches, and combination vehicles. They do not require frequent repainting and are solid and sturdy enough to keep these large vehicles in place.
HLGV wheel stops
HLGV wheel stops can be used for combination vehicles, coaches, and even double-deckers. They are 110mm high and 1000mm long, suitable for these larger vehicles. They are also equipped with a high visibility strip which encourages the safety of drivers, pedestrians, and anyone who happens to be around the vehicles while they are parked. With a ribbed side directed towards the rear of the bay, these solid wheel stops are suitable for a range of settings.
Car wheel stops
While cars may be smaller than other vehicle types discussed here, it is still vital to ensure that they do not move independently. Keeping them in place and well-controlled is essential, so car wheel stops are a vital part of your workplace or car park. These types of car wheel stops can be used in domestic car parks where you need to ensure that cars, vans, coaches, or other vehicles are well spaced and do not clash against one another. Car wheel stops also keep the vehicles from parking in places they shouldn’t, such as against fences or walls.
BrandSafe’s car wheel stops are created using recycled truck tyres and come in yellow or red to suit your visibility needs. Measuring 900mm long, 200mm wide and 80mm high, they are suitable for a variety of vehicles. The high visibility strips mean that both drivers and pedestrians have that little bit of extra safety.
Keeping people safe should always be your top priority in your working environment – and you can improve the safety of your space with BrandSafe’s wheel stops. These essential car park stops can be suitable for cars, HGVs or HLGVs, meaning you can make sure that your working environment is secure no matter what type of vehicles you use. Each of these is supplied with a fixing kit so that you can take advantage of them quickly and easily. View our full BrandSafe range of car park stops, and get in touch to see how we can best help to improve the safety of your environment.
Judging from last Winter’s record-breaking rainfall, daylight will be in short supply in the coming months. Making sourcing warehouse pedestrian safety products especially urgent.
Workplaces that involve pedestrians, off-road vehicles and trucks in close proximity are difficult to manage in terms of productivity and risk. The Winter months add to the complexities.
External visibility and movement are impacted, and even some internal warehouse areas become contaminated by moisture and grit from snow, ice and rain.
Assessing how to keep employees, visitors and drivers safe in warehouse environments is a year-round priority of course. However, setting aside falling temperatures, there are added risks in winter that compel you to ramp up site safety from October through to March.
To help you meet targets for warehouse pedestrian safety, which products can help you remain compliant and accident-free this winter?
Strong visual guides and signals for pedestrians
Winter is the perfect time to evaluate all your pedestrian safety features in terms of location, but also visibility. Have you got sufficient numbers of bollards, markers and notices in place across your entire site, but also how well can they be seen during hours of reduced daylight?
Clearly, this especially involves loading bays, approaching roads and car parking areas where staff and visitors walk near traffic.
If the visual impact of your safety structures and fixtures has been compromised over time, then sourcing authentically high-vis safety products for traffic management is now vitally important.
Risk assessments and structural safety measures in Winter
Have you considered every structure, angle or pathway that represents a risk for people walking around your site? Including any added distractions or issues caused by poor light or weather in winter?
Even the sounds of a storm could cause a momentary lapse in concentration.
Keep in mind that it’s now possible to specify versatile safety materials and products in a multitude of dimensions. Everything from easy to see yellow corner wraps, to heavy-duty pedestrian safety barriers and guard rail systems that are impossible to miss.
One of the ways installing new barriers is advantageous in winter months, is it could prevent accidents as staff hurry to get away from outside areas or draughty loading bays, or when drivers have less chance of hearing warnings and commands when it’s windy and wild!
Reducing the risk of winter trips, slips and falls in warehouses
Not all winter hazards in warehouses can be solved by good traffic management though.
Apart from the prospect of icy surfaces leading to your doors and bays, there is also the very real prospect of moisture and other contaminants transferring inside. Making walking on stairs or even flat floors in your warehouse a potential slip risk.
Risk assessment should take account of the need for products such as:
Keep in mind that this yellow/black light-duty foam edging material can be used in other ways too. Such as to cover over anything that presents a snag hazard, or a sharp edge that could hurt someone.
Versatile Pedestrian Handrails
These are vital externally where ice can build up, but can also be swiftly installed internally, wherever walking becomes perilous when moisture is present.
The best-designed handrail systems don’t simply help pedestrians stay upright. They are also an important way to prevent clashes with structures and off-road vehicles or to segregate staff and visitors from sensitive onsite areas.
Advice on winter safety solutions for pedestrians
There has been considerable investment in campaigns to keep pedestrians safe on public roads, and the HSE has put a strong emphasis on the steps needed to avoid pedestrian accidents in workplaces. However, in busy warehouse environments, the weight of responsibility falls firmly on employers.
Winter brings a fresh set of problems for anyone managing in-out workplaces when staff and vehicles use both external and internal areas for their activities. Planning warehouse pedestrian safety, and knowing what products to buy and where to place them, can become particularly complex in the colder, darker and wetter months.
The answer is to work with BrandSafe, to build on our expertise and experience in mapping out safety systems that leave no opportunities for gaps or oversights, no matter what the British weather brings.
Commercial driver training can only go so far in avoiding vehicle accidents on business sites. It’s important to know where to place speed bumps in workplaces, to manage all traffic movement.
Vehicle-related accidents in workplaces are still all too common.
There are also many other cases of vehicle injury at work, including ones occurring during reversing and slow speed manoeuvres, or even accidents during loading and unloading, coupling and uncoupling, maintenance and repair for example.
However, that death toll shows that vehicles moving around workplaces are still a significant part of the problem.
Managing speed on your business site is therefore not just a matter of H&S compliance. It’s an ethical duty, and a commercial priority to protect your business from interruption, loss of reputation and even potential litigation.
To help mitigate the problem, here are insights on sourcing and placing speed bumps in your workplace.
Do speed bumps work?
If fitting speed calming measures saves one life or a serious injury, it’s money well spent.
Speed bumps work because their presence is proven to encourage drivers to cross them at no more than 15mph. A series of traffic calming systems will force drivers to manage their speed to an average of 20mph.
The effectiveness of speed bumps is why they’re so commonly used on public roads. Motorists are now accustomed to responding quickly and slowing down.
Speed bump regulations
There are regulations on the type and size of road humps you can use on public highways. If you are planning traffic calming measures on roads leading to or around your premises, you must adhere to the Highways Regulations (Road Humps) 1999.
Keep in mind that you can only install bumps on roads with speed limits of 30mph or less, and you must indicate their location clearly.
For commercial premises, once you have the landowner’s permission, it is vital to find a speed bump supplier to produce structures that are reliable, durable and effective. Cheap and dubious products could cause more problems than they solve!
Placing speed bumps for maximum effect
Knowing where to place speed bumps is crucial! Their presence acts as a warning and hopefully a deterrent, but if they can be avoided or ignored, then your traffic safety system is flawed.
The starting point is a risk assessment of your site, finding strategic locations for all traffic safety products, including bollards, signs and road-based speed reduction systems. Speed bumps and wheel stops are often used in combination for warehouse environments, for example.
Potential locations include arterial site roads but also secondary access roads, car parks and areas where fleets and visiting lorries cluster.
Clearly, they need to be seen to be effective (and safe). So, hi-vis markings and signage must be included in your planning.
One of the key factors in specifying speed bumps is the fixing method, especially if you have HGV and LGV constantly passing over them. A structure that gets easily damaged or displaced creates a new safety hazard.
Also, the height and spread of speed bumps must be considered. This can mean working with an expert in traffic safety management, to get an effective speed deterrent that won’t damage your vehicles or make your site inaccessible for emergency vehicles.
The calculation is often height to speed goal ratio, and types of vehicles using your site. So, if you need to get drivers down to 5mph, you may need a bigger hump!
For most commercial sites, the perfect solution to managing vehicle speed is a 50mm high, black and yellow speed bump from BrandSafe. These come in kit form – in a range of lengths – to make them adaptable and easy to install on concrete or tarmac.
BrandSafe can supply custom-made speed bumps and ramps too if you need a site-specific requirement.
Also, contact us for help in mapping out traffic calming systems and other site safety features. It’s something we’re experienced at and can do fast!
No matter how logically laid out your car parking area is, accidents can still happen. This is why parking posts make such a good investment.
The most obvious advantage of buying parking posts is that they offer an important traffic management advantage. The different types of bollards, delineators and accessories can help you control both vehicle movement and placement. Including giving you the option of using posts as a clear indication of perimeters, hazards and no-go areas.
They can also be a way of optimising your parking area, making it easier for drivers to find and manoeuvre with minimal effort.
Let’s look more closely at these and other reasons to invest in parking posts.
Safety reasons to invest in parking posts
Strategically placed parking posts can help to prevent staff or visitors from parking in a way that causes inconvenience or hazard. Just one of the ways parking posts improves site safety.
To meet your Health & Safety obligations, you should seriously consider how you can use bollards to create better access for emergency vehicles. Is there a way to ‘ring fence’ an area close to the building, using a removable post system for emergency vehicle access?
On the topic of site safety, the very presence of parking posts can help slow traffic down on your premises. As well as giving pedestrians unmissable indicators of where traffic is likely to be, and how to avoid walking into the path of vehicles.
As well as using bollards to clearly segregate foot and road traffic, they can be used to create clear demarcation of entrances and exits, where vehicles tend to cluster and create even greater risk.
Managing accident costs, repairs and disruption
The best parking posts can also act as an impact-resistant barrier, to shield key areas and site features. This is a great way to minimise damage to vehicles, charging stations for electric vehicles, and entry barriers in car parks.
It’s also a great way to avoid having to replace expensive charging equipment and security systems.
Improving site optics with parking structures
Finding a supplier of aesthetically pleasing parking posts can make your site’s exterior or car park look smart, well organised and logical. The fact you have invested in parking posts – as visual markers for individual spaces and to help drivers manoeuvre safely – shows you are a caring and conscientious organisation.
You can place parking posts to funnel vehicles along a set route too, ensuring drivers visit your gatehouse when entering or exiting your premises. This can help manage parking in terms of the number of vehicles on your site, and your security team can point out visitor only parking spots, which are then further marked out using high-vis parking posts.
Site security and investing in parking posts
That last point links with site security issues. Strategically placed posts in your car park can also limit the ability of vehicles to intrude in your car park or building exterior in evenings and weekends, for antisocial or even illegal activities.
They can be installed to maintain privacy too, shielding areas of your exterior that you would prefer not to be used for parking or shortcuts.
Types of commercial site bollards
There are various types of vertical posts designed to be high-vis indicators and barriers.
If you’re looking for a flexible post option that will create a great visual aid and minimal damage if hit the flexible bollard is the one for you.
This minimises vehicle damage on impact. The perfect example is the Flexible Bollards and Delineator Systems that bend and crush on impact, but spring back to shape afterwards.
If you want something with less ‘give’, the steel-core Drop Core Bollards will work well. Their colour variations can help to indicate different parking issues such as fire hazards or serious collision risks. They can also be quickly installed but also re-sited as needed.
Another option is Heavy Duty Bollards. These are ideal if HGV and LGV are operating on-site as a robust barrier.
Not sure which parking posts to invest in? Contact BrandSafe for no-obligation advice, evaluation and traffic management product quotes.
INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNISED SUSTAINABILITY AWARD FOR BRANDSAFE
We are delighted to have achieved a prestigious international award for our ongoing commitment to sustainability.
The EcoVadis rating agency has awarded Bronze status to Brandsafe in a move that sees us continue to strengthen our position as a leader when it comes to developing and supplying sustainable industrial workplace safety solutions.
US-based EcoVadis is a provider of universal sustainability ratings, with more than 75,000 companies from over 200 industries taking part and committing to ensuring responsible sourcing throughout the supply chain. The assessment covers a range of CSR topics including environmental impact, labour and human rights and ethics.
Across all categories, Brandsafe has demonstrated a strong sustainability management system and performs in advance of others in the same industry sector. This is the first time that we have been assessed by EcoVadis and we are already focused on further improving our sustainability rating going forward.
Susy Keating, Managing Director of Brandsafe, had this to say on the award: “This is fantastic news and we are extremely proud to achieve such a prestigious award. This is a strong endorsement of our ongoing environmental commitments and focus on the sustainability we bring to our products and solutions.”
When you’re busy being productive, it is easy to overlook your H&S priorities. To help, here’s an essential 10 item workplace safety checklist.
Regularly making sure that your workplace has all the tools and techniques needed to keep your staff and visitors safe is vital.
Firstly, you have a legal and moral duty to keep your team safe at work. And going through your H&S checklist regularly will also add structure to your assessments making them more time-efficient.
Written lists of safety priorities, tasks and equipment also makes it easier to assign responsibility. For example, who’s in charge of keeping traffic management structures up to date?
Keeping checklists will remind you of what you need to install or replace, to maintain levels of site safety – internally and externally.
You can also use your workplace safety checklist as part of your induction process, to highlight risks to new employees and demonstrate their role in keeping themselves and colleagues safe.
Ours is a more universal workplace safety checklist, featuring 10 key workplaces areas to focus on, for ultimate safety.
1. Obstructions – are walkways clear?
Trips, slips and falls are the biggest cause of accidents in the workplace.
It’s vital to check walkways and doorways daily. Introduce strict policies on keeping floors free of hazards will help you to avoid any unnecessary incidents. Keeping fire exits clear of obstructions is taken very seriously.
2. Inspect hygiene and cleanliness
This is another task to do daily, especially as we are emerging from a global Pandemic. Note down areas of particular concern, and make sure all relevant staff understand their ongoing tasks to keep surfaces deep down clean.
3. Check ventilation/filter systems are working properly
Frequent evaluation of air quality in your workplace is especially vital in sites prone to contaminants such as dust and fibres. Keeping on top of this can prevent insidious health issues, but also keeps ventilation and air filtration systems well maintained.
4. Safety signs to warn of hazards/dangers
One of the most fundamental site safety priorities is good communication, yet signs can fall off, become damaged or be obscured without you noticing.
Creating a map of safety signage can help, as you can then regularly check all items are securely in place and easy to see.
5. Stairs – are safety railings in place?
Stairways are generally a workplace danger, but become additionally dangerous if moisture is dragged in from outside, or your site creates contaminates carried on the bottom of footwear.
Stairs should feature in various elements of this workplace safety checklist, but also deserve special attention with the installation of the best safety guardrails.
6. Loading-bay area appraisal
Warehouse operations are especially prone to H&S risks and should be checked frequently to make sure every measure is in place to protect drivers and pedestrians – as well as your loading bay structures.
PPE requirements vary from site to site. Having it all catalogued clearly is common sense. Including mapping out locations where PPE is stored and dispensed. Then, you can regularly check everything is available, every working day.
8. Inventory storage inspections
Accidents are more likely in storage areas, including things falling from height. A crucial part of H&S is to study your inventory storage. Is the most logical and safe system being used to keep items in place, and is anyone taking ‘shortcuts’ that create a risk factor?
9. Regular tool and equipment inspection
Another thing to timetable for workplace safety is the testing of tools and equipment. Have you got all the safety items you need for your site, and are they where they should be? Make sure electrical items are still ‘up to code’?
10. Electrical shutoff switch
Talking of electrical hazards, this is one workplace safety priority that sometimes gets overlooked. Do you and all decision-makers know how to cut site power – partially or entirely? Is access to the switch assured?
Help with Workplace Safety Checklists
If your checklist throws up urgent purchasing needs, having a supplier ready and waiting can be a huge relief and an important safety advantage.
Chat to the team at BrandSafe, to discuss your likely requirements to have important safety products on standby.
This article will help you to understand what to look for in impact protection services so that you can choose the best services for your company. Impact protection is a vital part of any warehouse and getting it right is an essential part of keeping employees safe.
With the health and safety of people at stake, it is important that the impact protection services you choose to use are of the highest standard. To ensure that this standard is met, the impact protection service should be reliable, affordable, and high-quality and provide you with knowledgeable staff. Understanding exactly what to look for in impact protection services will help you find the best option for you quickly to maintain excellent safety in your workplace.
What to look for in impact protection services
The best impact protection services will do more than just supply your company with safety products; they will send a team of experts out to your site to assist you through every step of the impact protection process. At Brand Safe Protection, our impact services offer a full project consultation, bespoke product design and professional installation. We also offer fantastic ongoing support to our clients after the installation is complete to ensure that safety standards are well maintained.
As well as offering a great all-around service, it is important that the impact protection you choose is of the highest standard; you can check this by asking the following questions.
How reliable is the service?
Impact protection is no joke and many of the products installed in the services save employees from serious injury, and even death, each year. With the well-being of others at risk, the impact protection services that you choose should be reliable and thorough in their approach.
The most reliable impact protection services will carry out audits to ensure that the protection offered meets the demands of your specific site. By conducting a comprehensive audit of the premises, our services can fully understand the use of the site and provide maximum safety to protect people and assets.
Fair costs for impact protection services
The process of making your workplace safe should not cost your company an arm and a leg! Don’t let overpriced services trick you into thinking that they are the best when in fact, many great services can be offered at a very affordable price.
The best impact protection services will offer you great value for money and should not throw in any extra costs halfway through the process. A good way to understand whether a service is offering fair costs is to phone up the company and discuss exactly what is included in their price. Then, compare this with other impact protection companies until you find one that offers the best value.
High-quality products and service
The most effective impact protection should be highly durable to withstand workplace wear and last for a long time. This result only occurs if the impact protection service you choose offers products and services that are high-quality. High-quality products will be made from strong, resistant materials that are designed to last a long time and will not become easily damaged.
High-quality services include any services offered by the protection company that could affect the quality of the protection that is offered. The best impact protection services will offer expert product installation to ensure that all products are fitted correctly and for maximum protection. Professional installation teams should be able to install your new protection quickly, effectively and in the least disruptive way possible so that workplace productivity is not affected.
Knowledgeable staff
If a company is supplying protection services, they should be incredibly knowledgeable about the products that they provide and the nature of health and safety in general. Without the right knowledge, impact protection products could be installed incorrectly or poor auditing/consultation practices may take place. If this were to happen, the impact protection that is installed in your workplace may be ineffective, poor-quality or even unsafe. With the right staff on the job, your impact protection service will be conducted to a high standard, leaving you with a fully protected workplace and safer staff.
Choosing the right impact protection service is a vital part of keeping your workplace safe. At Brand Safe, we ensure that our impact protection services offer expert advice and assistance through every step of the process to ensure a high-quality and efficient result. If you would like to know more about the fantastic services that we offer, get in touch with our team today.
When it comes to safety systems where traffic and pedestrians meet, Armco barrier models are undeniably the best option. What can be a grey area, is how to site Armco barriers properly, and the correct ones to specify.
Wherever HGVs, LGVs and off-road vehicles operate, you will be constantly balancing two primary needs. Creating an efficient traffic flow that meets your productivity deadlines. Alongside managing vehicle and pedestrian movement to meet your H&S compliance goals.
Keeping everyone safe on site is also a moral duty. Plus, proper structural and operational management avoids damage to your building and vehicles.
This is all especially problematic in and around warehouse environments. These rely on visits from a constant stream of vehicles at docking bays, and a buzz of forklifts, pallet jacks, order picking machinery, platform trucks and other off-road vehicles inside.
You have the ideal solution.
Armco barrier systems are respected throughout the world. They have a superb track record for vehicle management and site safety. However, knowing this and putting it into practice are two different things.
You need to commission the right barriers and accessories based on a strategic plan of the best places to install warehouse Armco products. This is something we can advise on – to match your exacting workplace demands.
However, here are some handy general insights on how to optimise Armco barriers for warehousing.
Placing Armco safety barriers
The starting point is to map out all the possible places a vehicle could encounter either pedestrians or protrusions.
This includes locations like loading bay entrances, but also the ends of pallet racking aisles, shelving legs, support columns and wall structures. Are there places that expensive equipment, conveyor belts or other vehicles need to be shielded?
As they are so cost-effective, Armco barriers can also simply act as a visual reference to guide drivers into position.
Once you’ve completed your risk assessment, and sketched out Armco safety barrier installation locations, you can decide which size is best to create a reliable obstacle for those occasions when lorries or off-road vehicles veer off course.
Replacing the barriers is a great deal cheaper than rectifying structural and vehicle damage from a nasty collision. It is certainly an important way to keep your safety record and reputation intact. However, to maintain a good line of vision and keep your site clutter-free, you may want to limit the spread of your barriers.
Fortunately, Armco barriers are incredibly versatile. You can specify them in heights and lengths to match your site and its traffic type. For example, low-level safety barrier sections can guard against incursion from low ground clearance vehicles like forklifts. Or opt for a heavy-duty double crash rail to protect against a hit from HGV vehicles.
Best use of Wall Mounted Armco barrier
Warehouse walls and the sides of ramps for example are likely to be the scene of scuffs, grazes and prangs as vehicles manoeuvre around. Especially in locations that are tight for space, or which require that drivers reverse.
In many cases, mounting a warehouse Armco barrier on vertical planes can be the best solution. These barrier sections come with built-in ImpactSAFE shock-absorbing buffers, to further improve their performance. Yet, they are relatively quick and easy to mount on the brick, block or pre-cast concrete surfaces.
Think outdoor and indoor Armco barrier
Though there are various warehouse Armco barrier models, many of them are designed to be multi-purpose. Including being a great traffic management solution both inside warehouses and externally.
There can be so much emphasis on warehouse efficiency and control in your aisles, that a potential outdoor hazard gets overlooked.
Regularly evaluate the risk factors on all the approaches and within parking areas around your warehouse. Then, you can remain alert to ways to use a warehouse Armco barrier to good effect. The galvanised steel is weather-resistant, as well as being incredibly impact-resistant
Get the end right!
Lastly, once you have drawn up a purchasing list of Armco safety barriers for warehouses, you need to think about the end. Or ends to be exact.
Brand safe sells a range of Armco safety ends and cap posts, to increase their visibility to pedestrians and drivers, reduce the chances of impact, and avoid sharp edges injuring staff.
We are always happy to provide help in mapping out the best configurations of our strong and durable Armco barriers (and accessories). Including the best ways to install them to ensure you have the ultimate warehouse site safety systems.
Managing your fleet of Heavy Goods Vehicles – or controlling how visiting HGVs manoeuvre on your site – relies on time-served safety solutions. Including these HGV dock protection products.
No matter how carefully you mark the entrance and exit paths around your site, and the best places to park HGVs, a momentary lapse or some especially hectic traffic flow can leave you with a serious Health & Safety challenge.
One wrong move by an HGV driver and you risk an injury to them or a staff member, structural damage to your workplace, or a large vehicle repair bill.
Just to drive home how important this is, according to figures from the HSE, around ten people die each year on construction sites in the UK, from collisions with moving vehicles.
This makes it vital to introduce logical site planning and control systems, for any workplaces where larger vehicles operate. Especially around loading bays, where there’s likely to be a high concentration of both vehicles and humans.
Managing this situation certainly means investing in the leading HGV dock protection products. Items that have already proven to assist in seamless manoeuvring of heavy-duty vehicles.
Here is a quick guide to three of the best ideas for HGV traffic management and protection.
HGV landing plates
These HGV dock protection products help drivers position their vehicles centrally and neatly. Installing well-made HGV landing plates – in a high vis colour – also gives your team the best way to site lorry legs without damaging your tarmac or concrete.
They must be the right ones to achieve their purpose adequately though. Including having countersunk fixings and chamfered edges, to avoid creating a trip hazard,
The quality-assured ones Brandsafe sells are made from high molecular grade polymer. Giving them the properties needed to create an incredibly robust surface to protect your loading dock surface.
HGV Landing plates also provide a level surface ensuring even contact with trailer landing legs and a more stable base so there is no compromise to health and safety.
HGV Dock Wheel Guides
The HSE provides strict loading guidelines for HGV vehicles operating on commercial premises. This includes the sort of visibility issues you need to evaluate, especially for HGVs being reversed into spaces.
One of the best ways to make it easier for drivers to properly position their vehicle is to install dock wheel guides for HGVs. That way, you can be confident that their manoeuvring will be accurate and they are in the optimal position for safe loading and unloading.
Our high-vis, galvanised steel HGV cranked dock wheel guides are designed to funnel vehicles into the correct position. Without wheel trim damage. There are two sizes so you can find a wheel guide that sits at the right height for your traffic needs.
We also sell HGV Straight Dock Wheel Guides, which are the ideal way to transition vehicles in and out of internal loading areas.
HGV Wheel Stops
HGV dock protection products don’t come simpler – or more essential – than this.
Installing robust and hardwearing wheel stops, to show parking limits, provides drivers with a highly visual reminder. However, if they do lose sight of your HGV guides, the best wheel stops provide an unmissable indication that a parking limit has been reached.
One of the pitfalls of rubber wheel stops is that they can bend, split and fail too quickly. The Brandsafe version, however, is made from recycled truck tyres, moulded to withstand a reasonable amount of force.
That way, if a driver does inadvertently hit them, they get a sharp reminder to stop before doing any damage.
Low cost, compliant and cash-saving solutions
The common factor with all three of these HGV dock protection products is that they are built to last and affordable, making them great cost-effective HGV parking management aids.
With correct installation, these are also a low maintenance way to save you money, hassle and a dent in your safety record.
If you integrate them with a logical layout of speed bumps, column guards, bollards, delineators and other site traffic management items, you can tick off crucial safety goals. As well as improving traffic flow to boost productivity.
If you would like a quote for consignments of HGV dock protection products – and other impact and safety systems – please get in touch with the Brandsafe customer service team.
Halt! Strategically placed wheel stops help drivers to manoeuvre accurately into designated spaces, with all the benefits that provides, as this article explains.
If you have never overshot a parking bay – or realised you are straddling the lines in a car park – then you deserve a medal. Even seasoned drivers who use commercial vehicles every day can have a moment of distraction or misjudgement, leaving them untidily parked and possibly the butt of colleagues’ jokes.
However, this is no laughing matter if manoeuvring a vehicle into place accurately is important.
This is when wheel stops can be invaluable for even highly competent drivers.
Logical reasons to install wheel stops
Before we get on to the different types of wheel stops, let’s look at how they can be used to good effect in commercial environments or public car parks.
Their value is not just in creating neat parking. Though in some situations this is important to keep productivity up, with HGVs and LGVs positioned appropriately. It also helps to keep major routes unhindered by inaccurately parked vehicles.
However, wheel stops become crucial when vehicles are constantly manoeuvring near expensive structures – or equipment such as EV charging stations. Giving drivers a clear guide can prevent a lapse in thinking leading to a large repair bill!
The other side of that costly coin is those occasions when overshooting a designated parking area results in damage to commercial vehicles. Potentially putting them out of action.
Wheel stops also prevent vehicles from constantly using your kerbs, walls and other structures as their indication to stop, which can gradually lead to substantial wear and tear.
Another important reason to find a supplier of commercial wheel stops is to remain compliant to H&S mandates. Using well-designed traffic movement and parking indicators keeps both drivers and pedestrians safer.
Placing wheel stops in workplaces and car parks
The first step is to carry out a thorough risk assessment and evaluate the best parking or loading area layout. Then, shop around for different levels and lengths of wheel stop.
The same principles apply whether this is a public car park, logistics centre, warehouse loading bay or emergency services centre. Wheel stops need to be placed strategically to provide an unmistakable sign that the edge of the zone has been reached.
They need to include a high-vis design, as part of their preventative role.
To be sure they last well in the face of constant knocks, scuffs and even forceable incursion, whatever category of wheel stop you specify needs to be made of strong, abrasion-resistant materials.
They also need to be quick to install wheel stops at affordable prices, so you can replace them or create new vehicle guides easily.
HGV and HLGV wheel stops
The likely force they will sustain affects the type of wheel stop you purchase.
For example, best practice in laying out HGV parking and loading bays demands a reasonably high, robust wheel stop that won’t buckle, fragment or split like traditional rubber versions.
Brandsafe sells strong wheel stops made from recycled truck tyres, moulded to enforce the last braking point. You get all the fixings needed to quickly add these HGV wheel stops to tarmac and concrete too.
There are more compact but equally collision-resistant wheel stops designed for HLGV locations too. Though not as high or long as the alternative mentioned above, these commercial leet wheel stops are a reliable way to help drivers of LGV vehicles manoeuvre with ease. These too come in kit form.
Traffic management in car parks
Another version of wheel stops to aid safe parking are ones designed specifically to manage car tyres.
Our durable car wheel stops are still made from recycled truck tyres. However, they are more compact than HGV and LGV wheel guides, to ensure that cars aren’t damaged. In other words, they are wheel stops that cater for vehicles with bodywork lower to the ground.
The best car park wheel stop arrays create clear space demarcation. This makes the best use of the available area, at the same time as preventing vehicles from overshooting bays, becoming a hindrance or colliding with structures.
Integrating wheel stops in traffic management plans
Creating the best combination of wheel stops, traffic bumps, HGV landing plates, delineator guides and clatter bars can keep vehicles flowing – and halting – safely and effectively on your site.
For help in stopping accidents, with strong wheel stops, give Brandsafe a call.
From motorways to factories, farms and race tracks, Armco barriers are synonymous with traffic safety management. In this article, we explain what Armco barriers are.
Rather than “What is an Armco barrier?” the question should probably be what makes these particular safety structures so prevalent around the world? Or, how are Armco barriers made?
The fact that they are so commonly specified in diverse locations – wherever traffic management is a high priority – shows very clearly that they work.
Their reliable and respected design also explains why this versatile range is becoming increasingly commonplace inside factories and warehouses throughout the UK and beyond – as well as along public and private roads and within busy car parks.
Key Facts About Armco Barriers
You will often hear these crucial safety structures referred to as ‘crash barriers’ as that’s their purpose in a nutshell. They are designed to reduce the incidence of collisions, but also to reduce the damage done when moving vehicles veer off in the wrong direction.
Armco barriers literally save lives and have been doing so for many decades now.
Though the engineering behind them is clever – and unlikely to be superseded – the different sized Armco barriers all have the same fundamental components. They are corrugated steel sections, fixed firmly in place, to enable them to absorb a considerable amount of force.
The safety barrier systems come in various dimensions. Following a risk assessment, specifiers match the likely level of impact with the best Armco barrier design for that location.
Beyond their important safety role, Armco Barriers are also popular as they require very little maintenance once they are installed correctly.
How Were Armco Barriers Invented?
The company that invented Armco barriers changed names and priorities over the years. The concept can trace its origins right back to the American Rolling Mill Company, founded in Ohio way back in 1899. The founder wanted to make his own steel to supply his roofing business.
As the years ‘rolled on’ and new technologies and processing systems influenced how steel could be shaped, a range of impact-resistant barriers was produced. Leading to the company eventually adapting Armco as its name, to reflect this globally successful product range.
That company got bought out by AK Steel, which recently changed its name to Cleveland-Cliffs.
However, while all these changes were occurring, the product concept gained a massive worldwide following and a life of its own.
This means Armco crash barriers are firmly entrenched in traffic management practices. Including those distinctive corrugated steel beams, pinned by strong posts, and finished off with matching corners, ends and reliably robust bolts.
Where Should I Buy Armco Barriers?
Now you know the answer to what is an Armco barrier – and a little of the history of the company that invented the concept – the important thing to know is where to buy Armco safety products in the UK.
Particularly the safety structures that can be used for traffic management both inside and outside busy warehouses and factory delivery bays.
Brandsafe provides different sizes of Armco Barriers to fit around specific site dimensions, but also to serve specific purposes. For example, our low-level Armco 360 system is designed to shield pedestrians and structures from forklift trip incursion, but also to minimise damage to expensive and vital off-road vehicles.
There are other Armco barrier specifications that go much higher, to protect commercial traffic routes effectively, for instance.
Thanks to the appliance of modern engineering and manufacturing techniques, the Armco accessories we stock fulfil a diverse range of safety roles too. Such as, Armco Ends that quickly and easily snap into place around the potentially sharp edges of safety rails.
It’s worth emphasising too that our products for workplaces feature distinctive yellow accessories and features. This adds a high-vis element to these usually grey corrugated steel safety barriers.
Also, all steel used in Armco systems is from leading suppliers and is fabricated, galvanised and powder coated to British Safety Standards.
What is an Armco Barrier System to Your Organisation?
With so many modern ways to configure Armco barriers – internally and around site perimeters – planning the best ways to use this important safety range can be a challenge.
Brandsafe would be happy to ‘shape’ the skills of our technical team around your layout and specific safety needs – to swiftly design and install your Armco solution, and get this tried and trust product performing exactly as it should.
As the Government-backed shift to hybrid and electric vehicles is gathering pace, now would be a good time to understand the steps involved with EV Charging Station set up in the modern workplace. We have created a guide to provide a useful overview.
Another thing to think about is the cost of a big switch to green energy in your workplace. The good news is there are grants available to help your organisation meet the cost of an EV charging station set up.
This is part of the campaign by the Office of Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV), which aims to transition individual motorists and fleets as quickly and seamlessly as possible. You can get help with the costs and EV grant application assistance from OZEV.
The Government has also announced an additional £20 million of funding for electric vehicle charge points in easily accessible public locations across the UK.
When you’re ready to go ahead with your new electric vehicle charging scheme, the next important things to consider are where you are going to put them and how you’re going to protect them. The last thing you want after installing your EV chargers is for them to be damaged by a reversing vehicle.
This is where our guide can help.
EV Charging Point Set Up
Setting up EV plug-in sites properly is not just about getting vehicles charged easily and efficiently. There are steps you can follow to avoid costly damage and the inconvenience of having this vital new business equipment out of action for repairs.
When you select a supplier of commercial plug-in equipment for electric vehicles, it’s worth finding out if they provide help with locating charging stations correctly, including any DNO and safety requirements.
They should also take steps to earth the equipment properly and adjust it to match your electrical demands and characteristics.
If you need large-scale projects to install EV charge points, the right supplier can also help with planning applications, DNO management and all the other hurdles.
With the above steps sorted, your next priority is protecting this expensive piece of equipment. By the nature of the product, it will likely be near to constantly moving traffic, potentially including HLGVs and HGVs.
Sourcing the best protection system for your EV charging stations will depend on its location and the type of vehicles that need access to it.
Light Duty Protection for EV Charge Points
If your EV chargers are being installed into a small company car park, for staff and visitors use, Brandsafe can provide light duty protection kits for EV charging stations.
They’re robust enough to cope with a lot of mishaps in your car park and they’re also great for protecting EV charging stations at homes.
Medium Duty Protection for EV Charge Points
If you have a larger car park and several electric commercial vehicles, your EV charging stations may need some additional safety management items.
Brandsafe has packaged up ImpactSAFE Protection Posts with a Wheel Stop, so you can shield your equipment quickly and effectively.
Heavy Duty Protection for EV Charge Points
If you have multiple charging stations in your workplace and considerable commercial traffic to manage, you need a system to minimise impact damage from multiple directions. Our Brandsafe turnkey EV charging point package includes ImpactSAFE Bollards, a Wheel Stop and, if requested, Armco Safety Barriers.
Bespoke Systems to Protect Electric Vehicle Charging Points
The above options to protect EV charging stations at workplaces are designed to be easy to install and a reliable solution for many UK businesses.
However, we know that many companies have unique site layouts and challenges when considering how to protect EV charge points at their premises. We would be delighted to help design and install a safety system that keeps your equipment protected, and your vehicles energised and ready for action.
Also, if you need help protecting domestic electric vehicle charging equipment, or you are a public sector body installing EV charge points in public car parks, Brandsafe has the solution. Get in touch to discuss your impact protection requirements further with our team of product specialists.
We are delighted to announce that the parent company of Brandsafe, IWS Group (The Industrial Workspace Specialists), has acquired The Rack Group – a leading provider of pallet racking safety, inspection, repair and maintenance solutions.
Established for over 40 years as the UK’s leading pallet racking safety specialist, The Rack Group provides a unique combination of services – including inspection, repair, maintenance and training – and innovative products and solutions that guard, secure and maintain racking.
The Rack Group is reputable for its unique ability to deliver high quality and speedy service to some of the largest brands in the warehousing, storage, logistics and retail sectors. Its racking protection product, Rack Armour, is used extensively throughout warehouses and distribution centres across the globe.
What does this mean for Brandsafe and its customers?
Brandsafe and the wider IWS Group family is continuing to grow. The addition of The Rack Group to our family of specialist businesses further strengthens our resource, infrastructure and capability to provide our customers with the highest standards of service, customer care and innovation. It will also enable us to provide our valued customers with a wider breadth of service and product solutions.
The future
We are all excited about the future, and we’re particularly keen to explore opportunities to introduce complementary services, solutions and products to our customers from our new sister company within IWS Group.
More about IWS Group
IWS Group, the Industrial Workspace Specialists, is a growing family of market-leading product brands, manufacturers and service companies, providing essential services and supplies to the logistics, material handling and other industrial sectors across Europe and beyond. Find out more at www.iws.group
Brandsafe’s sister companies in the IWS Group are Beaverswood and The Rack Group.
Beaverswood designs and manufactures innovative products that improve the safety, efficiency and sustainability of the physical workplace. The range includes site safety products, labelling and signage, 5S visual communication and waste segregation solutions. Visit: www.beaverswood.co.uk
The Rack Group is a well-established market leader of pallet racking safety services, including inspection, repair and maintenance. Its racking protection product Rack Armour is the market’s most popular upright racking leg protector and is used across the logistics, warehousing and material handling industry globally. Visit: www.therackgroup.com
Safety bollards are a simple but effective solution for traffic management and H&S compliance. With a wide variety to choose from, in this article, we take a look at five different types of safety bollards and their functions.
Commercial premises where off-road and on-road vehicles operate all have their own individual risk points and challenges. Whether that’s areas in which pedestrians and vehicles both feature or where a collision could cause serious structural damage.
Badly managed site traffic can obviously put people in dangerous situations and attract heavy Health and Safety penalties if and when the worst happens. You could also find that even a minor collision interrupts your business day, and results in costly repairs to the vehicle and/or your building.
Strategically placed safety bollards offset these risks significantly. Primarily by alerting both drivers and pedestrians to risks. Modern versions can also serve more purposes, as the following five types of safety bollards illustrate.
With the growing use of electric vehicles, workplaces are making provisions for easily accessible charging ports in public and commercial parking areas.
This can leave you with a new area of vulnerability though, as vehicles bumping into or even scuffing your charging points can mean expensive repairs or replacements.
Brandsafe offers an effective solution to this modern-day problem; in the form of safety bollards specifically designed to guard your electric vehicle charging equipment. They can be quickly and easily installed to shield EV charging points.
These products also help to flag up your facilities for electric car, van and truck charging, as well as guiding drivers to the best parking positions to use them.
As standard, we offer product packages that will cover either light, medium or heavy-duty impact risks. Alongside our standard options, we can also offer bespoke solutions that are made-to-measure to provide the best possible protection for your site’s EV charging points.
The role safety bollards play in alerting site users to risks is well illustrated with our range of bollards and accessories to mark out traffic routes. It’s hard to miss a strategically placed array of flexible bollards and delineators in high-vis colours.
However, one of the advantages of this product range is that if something does hit these safety bollards at low speeds, they bend and move, before taking up their original shape and configuration.
This means that if vehicles do make contact, there’s no damage done. As they are relatively low-cost, you can use flexible bollards extensively for temporary and permanent traffic management.
This addition to our versatile and long-lasting flexible bollard range will help businesses to manage traffic flows with agility and confidence. Flexible delineators to indicate parking bays will become an increasingly popular safety solution as staff return to the workplace and more in-person site meetings take place.
Collisions in parking areas are not the only problem that can be solved with this type of safety bollard though. You can also solve a lot of confusion for visitors to your site, and make sure that drivers park logically and neatly.
Flexible delineators that feature parking bay indicators currently include options to mark out either Disabled or Electric Vehicle Parking Bays.
This product is easy to spot, but unlike permanent parking signage, you can move it around when needed. If vehicles do make contact, the materials and design avoid structural damage to the vehicle and the bollard itself.
This is undoubtedly one of the most cost-effective types of safety bollard options, that still manages to play a role in keeping vehicles flowing safely and sites incident-free.
These snap-fit, polymer moulded bollard cover kits turn your existing posts into an easy-to-spot safety structure. The kits come in various high-vis colours, so you can categorise your posts. They are also available in a range of sizes, all fitted with reflective bands to increase visibility in poor light.
As they require little-to-no maintenance, they are an ideal all-weather, 24-hour system to guide traffic and make your site posts more obvious.
Like all the safety bollards outlined here, demountable drop core bollard options are easy and quick to install, as well as being highly cost-efficient.
As the name suggests, Demountable Drop Core Bollards can also be swiftly relocated as your site traffic needs change. They are not flimsy though. Made from steel and polyethylene, these safety bollards are designed to highlight and protect high-risk areas. This includes warehouse loading bays and external site entrances / exits.
The five colours all feature 50mm reflective strips to improve visibility in lower light.
Which Safety Bollards Do I Need?
With such an extensive range of safety bollards available, it can sometimes be difficult to know if you have the correct systems to meet current and changing site requirements. Contact Brandsafe for free advice on traffic management and safety features in your workplace.
In a warehouse, safety is paramount. But how can you make your warehouse a safer place for everyone? Here we will look at introducing safety barriers and how installing these can keep your warehouse more secure.
Pedestrian Safety Barriers (SEG+)
In a warehouse setting, there is often a combination of foot traffic and forklifts, or other machinery, all working in the same space at once. This is why it is so vital to create a safe space for pedestrian access, as well as a clear route for all important vehicular access – this way, everyone can work safely without concern.
A fantastic way to create this delineation is with Pedestrian Safety Barriers. These barriers are perfect for zoning off separate areas, coming in your choice of black or yellow. If you need to restrict pedestrian access to IT and LV units, available with pedestrian sprung return gates so that equipment can be easily accessed and maintained, as well as demountable shoe plate options.
Each Pedestrian Safety Barrier is created to meet your bespoke needs, including the corner post, end post, mid-post and post centres, with a unit height of 1100mm. Made from high-quality materials, these safety barriers can withstand impact and keep your pedestrian workers safe at all times.
Guardrail Systems (MHE / PIT)
In some warehouse environments, it is essential to have more heavy-duty protection for every member of your workforce. Our guardrail systems are ideal for creating space and clear segregation between forklifts and other equipment from pedestrianised routes within your warehouse.
Available in yellow for clear visibility, these guardrail systems can also be adapted to custom colours in order to suit your warehouse environment. Made from heavy-duty steel, these guardrails are durable and sturdy enough to suit most environments, while still being able to integrate pedestrian gates for improved ease of access.
Concerned about cleanliness in an increasingly safety-conscious world? These systems have foam gaskets under the base rails so that there is less chance of dirt building up or debris collecting. Meanwhile, the closed-cell construction keeps your guardrails free from corrosion even during deep cleans – this means that you will not have to replace your guardrail system as frequently.
Coming with de-stacker extensions, the guardrails can stand at roughly 3000mm, creating a perfect separation from areas with stacked materials or larger pieces of equipment. Available with fittings supplied and all parts included, it is easy to create a safer space within your warehouse.
Pedestrian Handrail Systems (HR50)
Whether inside or outside, your warehouse environment usually requires secure pedestrian walkways. This pedestrian handrail system comes in a choice of yellow or black and is perfect for setting up safe zones within your warehouse setting.
Ideal for factory settings where pedestrian workers need to be separated from conveyor systems, it reduces the likelihood of pedestrian workers straying into areas where they are likely to encounter limb clash or head clash with equipment.
Restricting pedestrian access to safe areas is an essential part of improving worker retention and security – mainly because it results in fewer workplace accidents and injuries.
The pedestrian handrail system has steel boots and you can invest in a low-level barrier rail for added safety. With pedestrian sprung return gates as an option, your equipment will still be easy to access and perform maintenance on, without allowing accidental access.
With all components coming included in your bespoke quote, the system stands at 1100mm, the ideal height for pedestrians and blocking off forklifts and lower height equipment.
Sturdy and long-lasting, you can opt to add demountable shoe plate options for an even higher level of access, while still creating safe and secure walkways for all your workers, whether they are on foot or in a vehicle.
As you can see, installing the correct safety barriers for warehouse environments is a vital step in making certain everyone in your workforce. Whether you are looking for barriers to protect your pedestrian staff and forklift drivers, require a more heavy-duty barrier system for your environment, or need to provide handrails for pedestrians, there are options for your warehouse.
If you are ready to improve the safety in your warehouse, then get in touch with Brandsafe. We can help you to kit out your warehouse, from quote to installation.
Many companies are investing in electric vehicle charging stations at their premises. With commercial units costing well over £1,000, we want to help you avoid EV charging point damage with inexpensive existing products. The deadline for all cars to be electric is approaching fast. So, any venture which operates a fleet or manages logistics is exploring the most cost-effective way to provide EV charging points and the price for installing EV stations can vary enormously.
Then there is the issue of damage to be considered. When electric cars or autonomous vehicles hit a charging point instead of sliding effectively alongside it, the repercussions are considerable. We offer a range of products that will protect these charging points from impact damage; ensuring that your significant investment in this technology is looked after.
How likely is EV charging station damage?
If you don’t protect these new structures, you could face the problem of being unable to charge commercial vehicles that should be out on the road. You also face the need for costly repairs or even a complete replacement. Grants are available for initial installation, but not for when your equipment gets scuffed, clipped or reversed into.
Well-designed EV charging stations are compact and unobtrusive, housing communication and automatic data management systems in their structure, along with either a tethered charging lead or a charging socket. The irony is, the more streamlined your model is, the more likely it is that the complex circuitry and specially designed housing are in peril. Particularly when you initially install the EV points, and driver awareness is low.
Brandsafe provides three standard packages (or a bespoke solution if needed) to shield your EV stations from impact. The one you choose depends on the number of EV points you have, the layout of your site, the volume of likely usage and the size of vehicles operating on the site.
Light Duty Protection
Ideal for private and small public car parks where domestic vehicles are the primary source of traffic, our standard Light Duty Protection package consists of 2 No. ImpactSAFE Protection Posts that are highly visible to pedestrians and drivers. They provide strong and robust impact protection for this type of application.
Medium Duty Protection
For industrial and larger public car parks, we provide 2 No. ImpactSAFE Protection Posts and a Wheel Stop for added coverage. We recommend this package as a solution when there is a medium-to-high risk of impact damage and where light industrial vehicles (such as electric vans) are going to be using these charging points.
Heavy Duty Protection
When there are larger industrial vehicles (such as HLGVs and HGVs), we utilise 2 No. ImpactSAFE Bollards and a Wheel Stop. Brandsafe can also offer Armco Safety Barriers as an additional part of this package, the ideal layout of which we can advise on due to our extensive experience with designing and installing these systems.
Bespoke Solutions
We have the capability and flexibility to create custom solutions to suit the exact requirements of your projects. This can range from non-standard colours to suit clients’ branding, to additional signage and protection for surrounding sign / lamp posts, etc. Brandsafe’s team of Product Specialists are on-hand to advise you.
Site surveys for EV charging points
In commercial settings – such as industrial parks, HGV service yards and fulfilment and logistics bases – protecting your EV charging stations requires more detailed planning. When evaluating where to put EV charging stations – or operating existing ones – don’t forget to consider the repercussions for pedestrians, as well as the level of traffic movement involved.
For example, if your EV point is a section of your car park that’s been used as a short cut by staff, you need to erect warning tapes, impact protection posts and other safety measures. Consider whether wraps for existing lamp or sign posts and rail ends are needed to reduce the risks created as vehicles approach and leave your new EV charging points. This could also be a great time to review your speed bumps and other traffic calming measures.
Column wraps, skirts or guards can be sourced cheaply, installed quickly and serve a vital role in warehouse H&S. The potential for column protectors to save you time and money is outlined here.
A momentary distraction or misjudgement in your warehouse could end up costing you dearly. Especially if it results in staff injuries or structural damage that makes your building unsafe. Not to mention lost productivity and repair bills.
One of the most common incidents in warehouse operations is a forklift truck, pallet jack or other machinery and vehicles hitting support columns or racking. In many businesses, it’s often the same edge or corner that gets repeatedly scuffed or reversed in to.
This is a daily risk, no matter how well trained your team are, and no matter how logically you have laid out your warehouse.
Clearly, it represents a serious problem for the driver or operator, or anyone standing nearby if it brings a structure down. Even the slightest knock or graze on an unwieldy surface can dent your high-value equipment. It also has the potential to lead to a visit from a structural engineer to assess potential hidden damage to concrete supports.
Downtime and lost productivity can be an inevitable and unfortunate result.
Many of these issues become far less of a concern by simply fitting low-cost column protection products. Especially ones that are heavy duty and made of the right impact-resistant polymer materials.
The engineering principles of column protection
PolyWRAP Column Protectors are incredibly lightweight and easy to slot into place and secure to any protruding structures. Yet their efficiency in absorbing impact is unparalleled.
Buying these vital warehouse safety produces from Brandsafe also means you benefit from a recyclable polyethene protection system.
We sell a range of standard sizes, which can create a heavy-duty guard on columns from 152mm x 152mm up to 914mm x 305mm in size. However, we can also provide custom-fit column protectors for the ultimate structural shield.
This range is stackable, and due to its clamshell design and ratchet straps, it can be fitted and secured in minutes.
The recessed feature covers the base plate and studs up to 500mm x 500mm, avoiding trip hazards in warehouses too.
It will start having a positive effect from minute one. The bright colours act as alert to the presence of supports in the path of moving machinery. However, the true test comes when the first impact occurs. The quality polyethene material absorbs the kinetic energy, minimising the damage to both the machine and column.
Don’t forget PolyWRAP Column Protectors are ideal for outdoor use too, to keep the approach to your warehouse safer and less prone to damage.
Additional forklift impact protection
In areas where forklift activity is particularly high, we recommend considering the addition of PolyWRAP Forklift Impact Skirting may be useful. It creates a barrier 140mm high at the base of the column protector and can safely absorb the low-level impacts from forklift truck forks and pallets.
It shares many of the advantages of PolyWRAP Column Protectors, as it needs no mechanical placement or fixing, and can be slotted securely around vulnerable structures swiftly and inexpensively.
Impact protection in modern day warehouses is not a static issue
Once you have installed safety products at loading bay doors, around racking and to protect major columns, there could still be more risks to shield against. Mapping out your warehouse to replace or add extra barriers, guides and column protectors should be a continuous process.
You could well find that your operations shift and change over time, so your building’s vulnerabilities alter too. Or, new staff or visiting drivers ‘hit’ on places you have inadvertently left exposed.
Buying quality column protectors and other easy to fit safety products means you can replace and relocate them with minimum fuss. Though buying the right column protectors ensures you won’t need to buy new ones too often!
Modern warehouse safety product manufacturers have got creative and used their design and engineering knowledge to create a superb range of inexpensive aids for H&S compliance in warehouses. To chat through the solutions to your needs, and benefit from our safety advice and product recommendations, give us a call.
One aspect of Healthy and Safety compliance with no room for ambiguity or corner-cutting is shielding staff and visitors from site traffic and machinery. We drill down on the best impact protection options, and traffic management and pedestrian protection products.
Traffic and safety control on commercial premises comes down to one central theme. You must think ahead and try to predict what sort of problems humans and machinery can throw up! Which is no easy matter.
Risk assessments must take account of human nature, and the possibilities of inadvertent slip-ups, as well as deliberate recklessness. Then, you need to find the best impact protection options to keep people, machines and structures well out of each other’s way!
Fortunately, safety product manufacturers have covered all the same considerations, designing and engineering a diverse range of items to slot into place to meet your H&S obligations brilliantly.
This includes both permanent and semi-permanent fixtures and low-cost products that serve vital traffic and safety management purposes. Such as the following site ‘must-haves’.
Combination of flexible and heavy-duty bollards
Both fixed and relocatable bollards and delineators come in many shapes and forms these days, include bollard covers to boost the effectiveness of existing structures.
The goal is always to choose a high-vis product that alerts drivers of off-road and visiting vehicles to areas of risk.
Then, the best bollards are made from good quality impact-absorbing materials, springing back to shape from lighter blows or grazes.
Such versatile products as ImpactSAFE Protection Posts are also a wise investment. They zone off and shield internal fixtures and expensive equipment, from forklift trucks, pallet jacks and other moving machinery.
Parking and loading bay guards and guides
Bollards and other traffic safety measures are particularly crucial in commercial car parks, for fleet management or around busy loading bays.
There are plenty of choices for HGV landing plates and wheel guides, but also products that mark out parking spaces and keep pedestrians and cars apart. Commercial speed bumps are also cost-effective and quick to install in workplace environments.
Flexible delineator posts and chains can be moved into place to manage parking in a versatile way too.
More systems to separate pedestrians and moving machinery
There are other ways to keep staff and visitors safe from impact too.
Including highly affordable and easy to install pedestrian safety barriers and sprung return gates. These high-vis polymer segregation systems enable you to clearly identify pedestrian walkways on your premises.
Demountable shoe plate options make this product category another ‘lean’ choice, as the barriers can be relocated and reused at will.
Or, opt for heavy-duty guardrail systems from Brandsafe, to keep moving machinery carefully segregated.
Impact Protection from protruding structures and roof beams
Another example of the best impact protection products is Brandsafe EdgeWRAP. It’s a light-duty foam to cheaply and swiftly slot on to edges and corners, including any low laying structures and exposed metal. This greatly reduces the chances of staff or visitors sustaining an injury to their head, limbs or clothing!
CornerWRAP is a similarly low cost, high-quality safety solution sold by Brandsafe. It’s a Medium Duty foam, with the added benefit of chevron reflective strips for improved night visibility.
When it’s slotted on to steel, brick, or concrete walls and posts, it reduces the potential for human injury but also protects your building from damage.
Column protectors
PolyWRAP column protectors are another multi-faceted impact management product. With their clamshell design and easy fasten straps, you can install and stack column protectors both indoors and externally.
They absorb impact brilliantly, to keep your structure sound, but also to minimise impact injuries for your workforce.
You could also highlight and guard internal structures using SoftWRAP i-Beam, which you Velcro on to columns for rapid protection.
Modern materials and design for impact protection options
The invention of polyurethane revolutionised the safety product industry. It led to the invention of resilient products with incredible tensile strength, that could absorb impact and then return to their shape instantly. It also led to a new breed of durable workplace protection products with a low unit cost.
In the hands of designers and manufacturers who understand modern safety and traffic management priorities, you can now find a product for every situation and location!
To find your way through the various product ranges and plan the best impact protection options for your workplace, please feel free to get in touch.
If you’re not already among the many commercial sites using Armco barriers, this guide will demonstrate why this brand leads the sector. It will also answer questions about where you can buy accessories for warehouse Armco barriers.
Car parks, loading bays and a diverse range of other warehouse areas need traffic guides and guards to meet safety compliance, and for highly practical reasons too.
Replacing a section of safety barrier is a lot less disastrous than dealing with an injured worker or visitor, paying H&S non-compliance penalties or rebuilding a damaged structure.
However, simply erecting cheap barriers or walls is not sufficient. This can lead to two extremes. A barrier that folds or shatters on impact, or a solid surface that seriously damages the vehicle and puts the driver at risk.
For many companies, the best solution is to install Armco Crash Barriers. This leading brand offers a cost-effective and reliable off-road barrier system, that deflects and absorbs low-speed, low-impact kinetic force from vehicles.
Why Armco?
This steel barrier company has earned its reputation by supplying structures used on UK motorways, roadsides and even race circuits. Its production systems meet BS 4872 industry standards.
The company also manufacturers protective barriers commonly installed in busy warehouse operations, as well as being a brand respected enough to specify for many public thoroughfares, including pedestrian shopping areas and local authority car parks.
A review of Armco Barriers for warehouses shows that the sections are made from highly durable and strong corrugated steel. They are referred to as untensioned corrugated beams, meaning they are manufactured in an iconic W shape. This helps absorb impact, and they can potentially even hold their shape from a lighter blow from many off-road commercial vehicles.
Clearly, Armco Barriers for warehouses can deflect a lot of the force from forklift trucks and cars, but may also protect your staff and structures from HGVs travelling at slower speeds on your premise.
When galvanised and finished off correctly – including properly fitted Armco pedestrian safety ends and post caps – these barrier systems are also moisture resistant and long-lasting. Making them a sound investment, and ideal for external traffic management.
The range is also highly versatile, with various heights and shapes to create different protective abilities according to the layout of your warehouse. Including offering enough scope to engineer internal guards in warehouses too.
Tips to avoid mistakes in specifying warehouse Armco barriers
It’s important to buy direct, or from suppliers with reliable insights into the configurations that serve the best purpose. The same applies to accessories for warehouse Armco barriers. Make sure you buy genuine parts to finish off your barriers, from Brandsafe. Buying industry experience -as well as quality products – matters!
This especially relates to covering off sharp or protruding edges. We stock Armco Post Caps which quickly push into place, increasing visibility and safety.
Also, make sure you map out your protective barriers for your warehouse operations – or other commercial sites – accurately. Your risk assessment needs to take account of any irregular shapes you may need to create an effective barrier system. To help you measure your Armco crash barriers spec, the company has an excellent free calculator on its website.
How to erect warehouse Armco barriers
As well as buying the correct posts, lengths and curves, make sure you find a supplier of accessories for Armco crash barriers who is knowledgeable and quick to respond. Especially as you may find you need additional components once the installation is underway.
Bolt-together the components, then attach the main beam sections together. These are usually 3mm thick and pre-drilled for fixing in place. When you have concreted your support posts into the ground or used base plates, you should find that the pre-drilled holes on these posts line up with the ones in the beams and curves.
Move gradually down the posts, attaching the beams as you go, making sure to slot on Armco pedestrian safety ends and post caps to smooth out transitions, gaps and edges. Use at least two posts to support a corner section.
Warehouse Armco Barrier Accessories
Brandsafe has everything you to need finish off your warehouse Armco barriers, or to retrofit protectors on sharp edges and intersections. Our safety edges and post caps for Armco barriers are either yellow or black, with diamond grade reflectors for increased visibility.
We’re lifting the lid on the subject of safety barriers, and vital factors that can’t be overlooked. Not least because incorrectly engineered or placed barriers can be more dangerous than not having any at all.
Strategically-placed barriers without a doubt go a long way to reducing the number of accidents around your building. They are vital in warehouses and logistics businesses, and on construction sites, or anywhere else that vehicles and people operate closely together.
This is an issue you can never be complacent about
The wrong kind of barriers – or incorrectly installed or outdated ones – can leave you badly exposed to serious incidents. Putting staff, visitors, vehicles and the fabric of your building at risk.
Failure to map out the best places for safety barriers can also cause business interruption, costly repairs, heavy fines and a serious (if not permanent) dent in your company’s reputation.
Safety barriers on private property
If this makes you doubt the reasons for installing safety barriers in and around your premises, then please be assured they do serve a vital purpose. In fact, if you own a commercial site where vehicles operate, you have a regulatory and ethical duty to install suitable safety measures. Including methods of segregating pedestrians and forklift trucks, for instance.
The focus needs to be on getting your specifications right, buying quality products and installing well-designed barriers correctly.
What to look for in reliable safety barriers
First and foremost, you need a supplier able to prove the integrity and impact-values of the safety barriers you buy. This is one time when the cheapest is not necessarily best. Something that looks the part, can prove to be entirely cosmetic and a risk mitigation failure.
There are even cases of companies buying highly visible lightweight products to alert drivers to danger, missing one of the most important purposes of these products. The best kind of barrier is a warning but also offers shock absorbency, minimising the damage caused by impact.
And you don’t need to pay high prices for outstanding safety barriers that that are both highly visible and durable. Brandsafe keeps prices highly competitive, while still offering safety products that are thoroughly tested and verified.
All of our safety barriers are tested to withstand the force of maximum capacity vehicles, travelling at maximum speed.
There’s a snapshot of some of the impact testing work we do on our website, as we put our reputation on the line with every safety product we endorse and sell.
Also, if you are going to invest in robust traffic management solutions, your safety barriers and bollards need to be low maintenance, built to last and fixed down properly. (Unless you want a versatile demountable safety barrier than you can relocate as risk factors change.)
Finding the best safety barriers for your site
If you have a workplace where vehicles operate, the best safety solution has to be versatile enough to adapt to your layout. That includes safety barriers and guardrails that can be installed quickly, but which create an authentic obstacle.
For example, our Pedestrian Safety Barriers (SEG+) are engineered from an advanced polymer and strong steel boots. The range includes corner, end and mid posts, post centres, demountable options and Sprung Return Gates. So, instead of working around a prefabricated safety barrier, you simply create your own pedestrian segregation solution. One that keeps your traffic flowing uninterrupted, but with the assurance of sound risk management.
We also sell heavy duty Guardrail Systems (MHE / PIT), with de-stacker extensions. You can build up to around 3000mm high, making this a great way to separate vehicles and pedestrians in places where tall pallets or equipment create a restricted view.
These are just two examples of Brandsafe products that you can depend on.
Putting traffic control in safe hands
Location is fundamental to the value of having safety barriers installed. They also need to be an unmissable warning system and a genuine layer of protection between vehicles and people. Impact absorption capacity matters far more than appearance, though the best-made safety barriers look reassuring strong and effective.
If you are ready to pin down locations for safety barriers and your product requirements, give us a call.
Regularly reviewing warehouse site safety – and sourcing products that fulfil your ‘duty of care’ – serves multiple purposes. Including keeping you operational and avoiding heavy Health and Safety related fines.
The likely cost of breaching your duty to employees and site visitors – enshrined in Section 33 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 – could run into tens of thousands of pounds. If not more. In some cases, it also leads to criminal charges and imprisonment.
In 2017, a UK high street retailer paid a hefty fine of £1m for having chaotic working conditions in its warehouse and storeroom operations. Clearly, safety measures are something that no firm should allow themselves to become complacent about.
How a lack of awareness or time can trip companies up when it comes to warehouse safety
Obviously, ‘intentionally breaching or flagrantly disregarding the law’ is the most serious accusation you could face under Health and Safety legislation. Though you’re also culpable if you show a lack of foresight or ‘willful blindness’ to risks. There are even hefty penalties for offences committed by ‘acts or omissions’ reducing the reasonable care you take of people on your premises.
To keep your warehouse operations on the right side of ethical and legal obligations, we offer a range of low cost, easy to install safety measures, including these five crucial (but often overlooked) products for warehouse safety.
So, which five warehouse safety measures should you be considering here?
Shielding sharp edges and protruding structures within your premises is basic common sense. The trick is to use a product that genuinely acts as both a warning and a damage limitation measure. Some companies buy cheap high-vis products which don’t actually physically protect pedestrians from injury.
The five shape options offered by our quality Edge Wrap can be matched to diverse sharp edges and low steelwork for example. It is high calibre Edge Wrap with excellent Light Duty foam impact absorbency. It is also inexpensive and quick to install, as it is self-adhesive.
Positioning HGVs correctly and quickly saves time but also avoids accidents. Fitting manoeuvring aids is another occasion when safety products must tick multiple boxes though. Inferior landing plates can lead to a whole new set of risks, including tripping up your workforce or visiting drivers.
Our high molecular grade polymer HGV landing plates are highly visible but also constructed with chamfered edges and countersunk anchors to fix them in place. Giving pedestrians and vehicles a smooth passage across them.
Having these HGV landing plates installed is a great way to reduce damage and wear and tear to your loading bay surface too. An added economic bonus.
As slips, trips and falls are a major contributor to workplace accidents, simple and inexpensive handrails make your warehouse a much safer place. Apart from giving pedestrians support as they walk up and down steps or along raised walkways, the correct handrails manage pedestrian traffic to avoid clashes in tight spaces or encroachment into high-risk areas.
Our Pedestrian Handrail Systems – which have Sprung Return Gates and Demountable Shoe Plate Options – are also a great way to guide people away from parts of your premises prone to accidental damage.
Another easy win in the battle to protect employees and visitors is to fit traffic calming measures within warehouse operations. Our speed bump kits are ideal for this, helping to highlight where vehicles are likely to pass and providing drivers with a strong incentive to slow down.
These speed reduction products are quick to install on concrete or tarmac and feature diamond grade reflectors for improved visibility in poor light.
Another quick solution for safety improvements in warehouses is heavy-duty, multi-purpose demountable bollards. You can fix them down and then relocate them as your field of operations alters, or as new risks crop up.
Brandsafe’s come in five colour options to flag up fire hazards, caution areas and high-risk locations for example. As they are polymer covered, they require no repainting, and they are designed to be both an effective warning system and an impact management tool.
Mapping safety product needs
Bringing in expert help to evaluate your warehouse safety requirements can connect you to cost-effective and durable systems, that boost your safety record significantly. It also gives you one less headache, as your Health and Safety at Work compliance is more assured, making inspections a lot less stressful.
Give us a call to discuss updating your safety product profile.
Our UK Strategic Account Manager for Brandsafe, Paul Roehricht, considers the critical role aftersales care and partnership plays in delivering the highest standards of safety and protection in the warehouse and logistics environment.
It should really go without saying that taking care of your customers once you have provided and installed products is best practice and the number one priority for any supplier. But too often in the scramble to deliver and look for new customers, it can be to easy to fail to follow through or appreciate that active aftercare can be beneficial for business.
Indeed, aftersales care and support reflects a genuine insight into customer needs as well as an opportunity for a supplier to secure additional business in future: it’s been estimated that margins generated by post-sales activities can be several times higher than those of initial product sales.
Good customer service does not stop once a purchase has been made, installed and your team has left the building. It’s only right that customers investing significant sums in safety and impact protection systems – indeed, any products – deserve the highest quality service, fast and effective resolution of problems or queries, as well as a touch of added value.
Understanding demand and managing the supply chain efficiently to secure product stock levels, supported by the deployment to customer sites of skilled, well resourced service teams, who understand the nuances and critical issues on the ground when it comes to onsite installation of systems and products, are key ingredients in a recipe for getting things right first time, every time. For example, if you cannot supply customers with the right part or product when they need it, and then install properly, they will go elsewhere.
Positive experience
Customers will be far more satisfied if they see your demonstrable focus on service and aftercare support, too. They’re more likely to purchase from you in the future if they have a positive experience of your company and project management capabilities – they may even recommend the brand to other potential customers as a result. For most companies, better service and aftersales support boosts revenue, delivers greater profitability and inevitably creates a powerful competitive advantage for the brand. Simply put, it’s good business.
Undoubtedly, the current pandemic is re-shaping the way many organisations conduct business. And this can be reflected in the role partnership plays in areas such as project management – and how sector suppliers such as Brandsafe go the extra mile.
Suppliers and customers who adopt a partnership approach can see rewards and reap significant benefits; particularly in the warehouse and logistics industry, which has been prone to accusations of unwillingness to share best practice and engage collaboratively on safety matters to drive wholesale improvements for the benefit of all sector operators.
Supply chain collaboration has a lot to offer. Relying on your supply partner to effectively project manage critical installations, for example, can reduce costs while improving quality and service levels. As we see online sales surge as a result of the pandemic seemingly without end, many retailers and distributors are peddling fast to re-organise and invest to either upgrade or redevelop existing warehouse infrastructures, or build new multi-complexes and international distribution hubs to accommodate strategic growth and expansion.
Operators may be rightly concerned about investing at a time when managing the bottom line is crucial but, with so much current change in consumer behaviour and purchasing decisions, there is no time for businesses to rest on their laurels.
Indeed, online sales in 2020 are expected to grow 19% year-on-year, up from pre-pandemic estimates of 11%, rising from a total of £66bn in 2019 to almost £80bn this year. Some forecasters suggest UK e-commerce will grow in value by as much as £5.3bn by the end of the year. Supermarket supply chains are also seeing big surges in demand, placing additional pressure on their distribution and supply chain infrastructure.
Partnership delivers
Skilled labour, which should be utilised effectively, is a resource in short supply, whose use must be effectively deployed. Many businesses in the warehouse and logistics sector might not be able attract or retain all the skills they require to support their capital investment and redevelopment plans, or may need these skills on a more flexible basis. Working in partnership with your supplier, who will have the requisite experience and expertise in place and available for use, will add even more supply chain value and allow people to benefit from skilled resources.
Innovative approaches can be shared throughout our sector, opening up advantages and delivering benefits for all. Partnership can make things a lot easier, quicker and cheaper, helping to support your health and safety commitments as you move into new geographical areas, expand operations or enter markets to access new customers and opportunities.
It will unquestionably facilitate new dynamics in the supplier/customer relationship, paving the way to mutually beneficial commercial and operational advantages. So in a sector that constantly evolves to meet the ebb and flow of changing consumer tastes and faces challenges around keeping people safe and secure while maximising productivity, surely there’s no better time to explore partnership with your suppliers and the role it plays in delivering the highest standards of protection?
About Brandsafe
Brandsafe specialises in bespoke designed impact protection systems and solutions fordistribution centres, warehouses, and manufacturing and production facilities. The company’s innovative product range combines the versatility of polymer with the inherent strength and cost-effectiveness of steel. Brandsafe prides itself on its unmatched project and consulting expertise, which provides an unrivalled solution for companies who put safety first. Contact our expert team to see how we can help you on your project.
When it comes to HGV protection, one of the most important ways to manage the risk of accidents is to closely examine the potential blind spots around your site. Where are they likely to be, how can drivers manage them and what safety products can companies use to reduce the risks.
Thanks to the investment companies make in driver training – and creating logical and safe access points at their premises – accidents involving HGVs are thankfully infrequent. However, when they do happen, they can be catastrophic.
Even within the confines of business premises, HGVs have the capacity to cause serious injury or to kill a pedestrian or driver. They can also create major structural damage, resulting in significant business interruption and cost. Having the contents of a lorry written off – or bodywork repairs to commission – can be the least of your concerns when a vehicle backs into a loading bay pillar or fails to manoeuvre around a height-restricted structure.
This demands that any sites where HGVs operate must regularly assess their risks, including the less obvious ones. What potential is there for blind spots which could hamper even the most advanced HGV driver? Then, you need to install impact safety products that protect HGV drivers, pedestrians and your buildings.
Industry reaction to the perils of blind spots
Of course, this is not an issue solely of concern to companies with large vehicles entering and leaving their premises. There is a growing awareness nationwide that more steps are needed to manage HGV safety on UK roads
This has resulted in some manufacturers and operators fitting vehicles with the latest technologies, including sensor systems with driver alerts, camera monitoring systems, Class V and VI mirrors and audible left-turn warnings, for example.
In London, drivers now need HGV Safety Permits to avoid a ban from the capital’s roads. These permits are only issued if vehicles meet a list of attributes designed to keep both pedestrians and cyclists safe.
The primary source of HGV blind spots is, of course, the visibility restrictions created by their own bodywork. This can leave larger lorries unable to see small cars that are right alongside them, let alone cyclists, people on foot and low-lying structures.
Even technology can’t solve all the problems this creates. The emphasis often needs to be on aids that help commercial vehicles manoeuvre and park smoothly.
Low-cost products that mitigate HGV blind spots
When it comes to HGV protection and keeping your staff safe on your premises, the Brandsafe products that can assist you are inexpensive to buy, and easy to install.
Some of our products are designed to act as shock absorbers, reducing the potential for vehicles to damage structures or their own wheels and bodywork, such as column wraps and bollards.
Others are simple but clever ways to manage HGV blind spots, at the same time as speeding up vehicle maneuvering, which makes delivery and loading swifter.
This is a contemporary innovation, based on traditional systems to guide HGVs into place on raised level loading docks. Available in two different lengths, our high-vis cranked guides are also a great way to protect vehicle wheel rims from costly damage.
These galvanised HGV wheel guides are also available in two sizes. They help drivers reverse or drive forwards on to raised level loading docks more intuitively.
A great parking aid for HGVs is our high-vis wheel stops, engineered from recycled truck tyres. Having these installed also helps pedestrians to see where HGVs, buses and other commercial vehicles will be manoeuvring. Our durable moulded wheel stops come with all the fixing items needed to create clear stopping points on your concrete or tarmac.
Illuminating your site’s blind spots
Getting your HGVs into place efficiently is important to keeping productivity up, and accident rates down. Having impact safety products from our range installed will definitely be welcomed by drivers too. They will be able to do their job in a more assured manner.
Get in touch with the team at Brandsafe for more information about HGV protection and related products, impact deterrents and manoeuvring guides, to manage workplace risks on your site.
There are many good reasons why we recommend Armco products for cross-site safety in diverse warehouse operations in the UK. It’s a brand with a stellar reputation in its field and it has our 100% trust rating. Here’s why.
Warehouse accident prevention – protecting people, structures and machinery from harm – calls for wholehearted commitment and continuous evaluation. Including finding the best safety products to manage risks right across your site geography.
For us, Armco leads the field on this, offering tailored warehouse safety products at highly competitive prices. Why do we have such faith in this brand and recommend the range to so many of our warehouse customers?
Safety product integrity
Any review of Armco safety products for warehouse sites must mention the level of design excellence invested in creating the ideal barriers and accessories.
The dimensions and tensile properties of the sections can be optimised to cope with a wide range of collision risks – according to height and other trajectory factors.
Also, the materials used to create Armco products have a proven ability to absorb impact, limiting the damage done when vehicles make contact with crash barriers.
As our reputation rests on the safety record of our customers, we know that recommending, engineering and installing Armco barriers offers the best line of defence.
Are the best barriers for warehouse sites, the most expensive?
The cost of accident prevention measures in warehouses can be a critical factor when fitting out a new build or upgrading or refitting an existing site.
The cheapest solution is not always the best one when it comes to managing traffic and workforce safety. However, too often companies waste money on overly complex or unnecessary safety measures.
One of the reasons Armco offers the leading off-road barrier systems is that the price of supply and installation can be relatively low.
Without compromising the integrity or effectiveness of this vital warehouse safety measure.
These products also last, withstanding environmental factors and a substantial amount of ‘wear and tear’.
Armco is versatile and quick to install
The Armco range offers something to suit any off-road location. From loading bay approaches used by large wagons and busy company car parks, to the internal areas of your warehouse where forklift trucks manoeuvre.
This versatility is echoed by the way Armco barriers can be configured to meet specific site needs. For instance, you could protect commercial vehicles operating on your site by installing Armco 760HR Safety Barriers, which come ready fitted with a pedestrian handrail on one side. It separates traffic from people brilliantly.
Apart from choosing from various Armco barrier design and size options, the way they are fixed down can be bespoke to your site.
For example, Armco Wall Mounted Safety Barriers are a great way to manage the risk of vehicles clipping structures around entrances or the sides of your buildings.
Advanced accessories for warehouse safety
The safety barriers themselves are engineered to reduce and manage impact damage, but importantly, you can also specify various features that further improve traffic and pedestrian safety.
A great example of this is the Armco Fishtail Safety End. Not only does it absorb contact with vehicles on your site, but it’s also highly visible, preventing collisions from happening in the first place. You can retrofit this flexible polymer safety end on any Armco steel barrier or rail.
The range offers you ways to pay strict attention to detail when it comes to accident prevention.
Such as simple but effective high-vis protective post caps to smooth out sharp rail edges, or push-fit kits to add polymer ends to barrier lengths.
Any barrier corners can be topped off with unmissably bright Armco Safety Corners.
This ingenious range has covered all the risks, so you can cover all your safety obligations!
How to know which Armco product is ‘best fit’
The Armco range is understandably popular within warehouse operations, or for any site which needs to prevent accidents and manage vehicles operating continuously.
Reducing risks and minimising collision damage keeps people safer, but also avoids repair costs and loss of productivity.
The trick though is getting your Armco barriers, rails and accessories to match your site layout and specific safety risks.
Brandsafe provides in-depth, tailored advice as a standard feature of its Armco safety barrier supply and installation service.
Contact our team to discuss your Armco safety barrier and impact protection requirements.
As an employer, meeting Health & Safety obligations must always be your top priority. Knowing where to go for expert help and quality safety products can help enormously, which is why understanding what we do at Brandsafe is so important.
Finding a supplier of versatile and reliable safety products for your premises – inside and out – can mean sifting through a myriad of different companies.
Then, making sense of the different terminology they use for what they sell to find the right size and type of product to prevent accidents on your site.
For many companies, it is far better to save time and gain peace of mind by approaching Brandsafe for expert help.
It can also be the ideal way to keep to a tight budget while still confidently shopping for all your site-specific safety products.
Why Brandsafe?
We have invested a great deal of time in understanding the safety needs of modern businesses and industrial premises – from supermarkets to warehouse operations, and from office car parks to factory floors.
Our product research and innovation are also highly advanced. We avidly follow safety prevention trends and the latest product development, to understand the best way to protect structures, machinery and of course people.
From wheel stops and protection posts to substantial safety barriers, we have the ultimate know-how.
We don’t just sell safety products. We provide consultation and site survey and accident prevention support.
The reason we take our job so seriously is that Brandsafe doesn’t ‘just’ sell safety products. We work with customers to sell the RIGHT safety products; items that authentically and completely dovetail with their risks.
This ensures you don’t overspend on unnecessary or overcomplex items. Or, worse still, find you have inadvertently left your site exposed to preventable Health & Safety hazards.
Our reputation rests firmly on your safety record when you use us to map out and install traffic, pedestrian, and workplace accident prevention solutions.
How is Brandsafe’s assured safety product service delivered?
Brandsafe applies its unique insights and expertise to meet the risk needs of each specific customer. It starts with getting a thorough brief and doing a site survey.
We then provide a free quote for safety product supply and installation. This can even mean engineering bespoke items that keep our customers properly protected during their daily business operations.
We provide a free quote for safety product supply and installation.
The alternative for you is buying safety products ‘off-the-shelf’ and hoping that they are correct, easy to fit and serve their purpose reliably.
For many companies, such DIY safety measures are not worth the risk or the potential to spend money unnecessarily.
Also, we understand that your site could be ever-changing, which amends and alters your safety ‘hot spots’ and risk levels.
So, we always look for versatile cross-site safety solutions, that can keep pace with your business development.
What sort of safety products can we supply?
Choosing the best safety products means relying on companies with a strong track record for manufacturing durable items made from quality materials, which have been tested thoroughly.
It’s not a purchasing area were taking shortcuts and buying cheap should ever be a consideration.
Brandsafe knows the manufacturers who tick all the right boxes, at the best prices. This includes Armco, well known for its ability to create trustworthy and keenly priced warehouse safety products.
Our partnership with them provides our customers with a tangible advantage.
Safety product consultancy recommendations
Though each site has its own accident prevention needs, case studies and safety product testimonials from satisfied clients can help you to choose the best supplier.
Our end clients include global businesses such as Amazon, Marks & Spencer and Jaguar Land Rover. Finding scalable safety solutions for often complex and multi-faceted sites like these keeps our team fully on their toes.
However, we are equally attentive and invested when a customer has a far simpler need for safety product supply and installation.
Do you need site accident prevention support?
Whatever the size of your company or site, we can map out and recommend genuinely appropriate ways to manage a workforce, traffic and pedestrian safety measures.
Once our product recommendations are accepted, we can install, upgrade or refit safety products swiftly and efficiently to minimise disruption.
Whether you are an architect creating new business premises, a facilities, H&S or site manager improving safety measures, a contractor or a company owner/manager, we are here to help. Get in touch to discuss your site safety risks and tap into our in-depth knowledge of this crucial business field.
Common accidents in the industrial workplace and how to avoid them. One wrong move in your workplace could result in an employee being injured, and your production schedule going off course. These leading accident prevention products could greatly reduce your biggest daily risks in the workplace.
Every industrial business has an ethical and regulatory duty to consistently keep its workforce safe. If you’re thinking you’ve got this covered, there are some sobering statistics that show there is no room for complacency. Especially the fact that every year there are 1.4 million work-related accidents in Britain. In 2018/19, that figure included 147 workers who died.
That’s the crux of this vitally important topic, but accidents don’t just damage individual members of staff either. They cause a drop in productivity or even costly downtime. In fact, work-related accidents lead to 28.2 million lost working days each year and cost an estimated £15 billion!
Many incidents have the potential to cause immeasurable damage to your reputation as an employer and could imply to customers that you don’t take your responsibilities seriously.
All good reasons – if you need them – to regularly review your safety procedures, policies and equipment. It’s not just a way of staying compliant but also a vital business priority. That must include assessing common workplace risks and the accident prevention products that best match your specific layout, type of operations and hazard hot spots.
As fuel for thought, here are three top industrial accident causes, and key safety products to help you guard against them.
The HSE particularly focuses on the way industrial companies control the flow of vehicles on site and the measures used to shield operators and pedestrians from impact. Alongside falls from height, physical harm from vehicles is the leading cause of workplace deaths.
An effective and low-cost way to mitigate the risk of vehicle collisions in and around your building is to fit impact-absorbent materials around pillars and other structures. PolyWRAP Fork Impact skirts for example. They are designed and manufactured to reduce the damage done by both industrial vehicles and pallets. PolyWRAP column protectors – available in different sizes – can be quickly slotted into place, building a protective surface at whatever height works best for your operations.
It’s not just forklift truck drivers crashing into hard surfaces that boosts the numbers of vehicle accidents in industry. Pedestrians in and around factories walk into their path.
Staff and visitors also have other slip, trip, chemical and electrical hazards to navigate passed as they move around your site. If you don’t take robust steps, you could contribute to a large number of workplace accidents due to people walking into danger!
Putting up permanent walls and fences can be difficult in an ever-changing industrial environment. Fortunately, you can source versatile pedestrian safety barriers made from polymer, which can be fixed quickly to the floor with a robust steel boot.
The innovative range of accident prevention barriers we sell even includes Pedestrian Sprung Return Gates and Demountable Shoe Plates. Making it an even more logical and responsive way to zone off high-risk areas. It’s the ideal way to keep employees and site visitors away from vehicles and other workplace hazards and can be adjusted to cope with changing hot zones.
Vehicle collision and pedestrian encroachment prevention products should head up your H&S must-have list. However, there is something else you can do to reduce the chance of accidents caused by trucks and other vehicles moving around your site. Look up!
A moment of distraction, misjudgement or unfamiliarity with your layout can result in a driver crashing into a doorway, low ceiling or overhanging structure. This puts them – and anyone working nearby – in danger. That’s on top of the likelihood of serious structural damage or vehicles out for repair.
Yet the solution can be surprisingly simple. Height restriction clatter bars. The range we stock can be specified in two lengths, in a complete fix kit, for easy application to diverse structures. The galvanised chain length and wording on the polymer clatter bar can be bespoke to your site.
Saving Lives, And Companies
Over the past five years, almost 50% of fatal workplace accidents were linked to two preventable risks; falling from height and collision with a moving vehicle. Remember too, that even non-fatal accidents can result in life-changing injuries. For some of the businesses involved, a safety oversight also ended their future.
Contact us to discuss your specific safety product shopping list and the best ways to prevent accidents on your site.
As warehouse and logistics operators continue to ramp up to handle the surge in online shopping, mitigating risk becomes ever more critical for a safer workplace. UK online retail sales have increased exponentially in the wake of COVID-19, with the surge in online sales showing no signs of abating. Sales are expected to grow 19% year-on-year, up from pre-pandemic estimates of 11% - rising from a total of £66bn in 2019 to almost £80bn this year. Some retail experts expect that 2020 will see domestic e-commerce trade increase in value by as much as £5.3bn. Supermarket supply chains also continue to see surges in demand, placing additional pressure on their distribution and supply chain links. Indeed, this summer online grocery sales grew 92% year-on-year in the four weeks up to 12 July 2020, increasing at a slightly faster pace than the previous four weeks despite the easing of lockdown restrictions, according to research by Kantar.
Realigning Industrial Operations
As the UK’s warehouse and logistics industry responds on multiple fronts, realigning operations and investing in additional resources to meet the impact of extra demand, sector operators must work out how to balance the need to protect workers - and limit risk in what can be a hazardous working environment - while maximising productivity. The volume of people working under one roof to shift and store goods and load / unload vehicles means that warehouses and storage facilities can be particularly risky workplaces. Annually, dozens of injuries are reported to the Health & Safety Executive; so they’re clearly dangerous environments, with hazards and risks ranging from slips and trips to people colliding with equipment, racking, corner sections and walkways. It also highlights the critical need for workplace safety if incidents and accidents are to be avoided. In addition, protecting people entering / exiting premises during shift changes must be considered if serious harm or injury is to be prevented.
In reality, safety may sometimes slip under the pressures and strains to realign operations and meet KPIs to accommodate expansion and growth, but under UK law, warehouse operators have to observe a duty of care to their workforce. In short, they must identify the health and safety risks each person faces at work - even more so during these current times where additional risk comes as businesses recruit and bring in more resources to meet demand. A duty of care comes into force when a person or group of people do something that might reasonably harm somebody, which includes the possibility of physical injury. In the context of work, duty of care is legally binding on an employer. Simply put, owners and operators must abide by what the law refers to as a standard of reasonable care, and this applies to any work-related matter where injury can occur. It’s important that a site risk assessment should be undertaken to identify critical safety issues. If not, and an employer fails to abide by their obligations, an employee may be able to proceed with a claim of negligence if a problem occurs, with all the associated financial penalties, legal costs and reputational damage.
What Is Best Practice?
What should be considered best practice when managing workplace risk? Success in managing risks is based on effective assessment: the process of evaluating the risks to workers from hazards to determine appropriate measures to eliminate, or at least reduce the level of incidents/accidents. An assessment should identify the key health and safety priorities within and around the warehouse so that efforts can be concentrated on these important areas. A thorough risk assessment will involve considering a raft of workplace factors, the dangers they may pose and who might be harmed by them. This work should involve gathering information such as current shift patterns, work arrangements and then evaluating it before an assessment to decide on the most appropriate measures and strategies to cut risk.
Improving Vehicle and Pedestrian Safety
For example, wheeled pallet trucks, racks, or trolleys can strike warehouse workers; so designated routes should be established wherever possible and marked by safety barriers and railings that are clearly visible. Here, a risk assessment will also identify what other hazards could be present. Vehicle movement in and around warehouses requires careful auditing and constant management to prevent accidents. This requires workplace traffic routes that allow pedestrians and vehicles to circulate safely. Where vehicles and pedestrians use the same traffic route, there should be adequate clearance between them and, if possible, complete separation of vehicles and pedestrians.
The racking in aisles must be organised and protected to allow for safe access to goods and movement of forklifts. The aisles should be sufficiently wide, with adequate clearance room overhead. Pedestrians and vehicles must be able to circulate in a safe manner. The areas in which forklifts operate should, if possible, should be clearly separated and marked from the areas where pedestrians are likely to be. One area where workers can be at particular risk is during shift changes. People rushing to get home at the end of the working day, not looking where they are going or accidently knocking colleagues into rails or pylons in their haste to exit the premises, can all lead to injuries and should be considered as part of any risk audit.
Good practice around managing the health and safety issues to do with shift-work should see employers carry out a suitable assessment of the associated risks as part of an organisation’s overall health and safety management procedure. You should record and review this periodically and whenever changes to working arrangements are considered or made. As well as a responsibility to the workforce, employers have a responsibility towards visitors, contractors and members of the general public. Everyone needs to be shielded as far as practically possible from accident and injury while on-site, inside and outside of buildings.
Continuous improvement should be a given when it comes to safeguarding and protecting people. An effective safety audit coupled with investment in robust and appropriate safety measures goes along way to mitigating risk. Investment in effective safety must be seen as good business.
Speak to Brandsafe for advice on creating the safest possible working environments.
COVID-19 has significantly changed the industrial landscape for the foreseeable future. Online shopping has reached unprecedented levels, putting greater demand on warehousing, logistics and transport hubs. Our supermarkets have been under immense pressure, heightening levels of manufacturing, warehousing and logistics. UK manufacturing is seeing an upturn as many companies re-shore back to their homeland, from the Far East, to become more self-sufficient and not have to rely upon other countries in case of another pandemic or emergency situation. Throw social distancing measures into the mix and suddenly workplaces realise they need to re-think their safety and protection systems and traffic flows in and around the building.
New Ways of Working Can Present New Health, Safety and Production Challenges
Every business has had to implement social distancing measures in order to re-open. For some, these will be quite extensive and, if you’re in the industrial sector, this can seriously impact the output and productivity of your facility. Suddenly, plants and facilities are faced with a balancing act they must get right – protecting the health of the workforce, alongside the safety of the people (as well as the building and everything within it), whilst achieving maximum output.
Review How People and Vehicles Operate in the Facility
It’s time to get everybody around the table – department representatives for Health & Safety, Environment, Quality, Transport, Operations, etc. to review the KPIs, targets and output requirements and identify the main health and safety risks associated with these. Consider how new social distancing measures will impact the outputs and the safety. Whilst it’s utterly important to keep people healthy, their safety must be top priority too. Review floor plans and consider shift patterns and volume of traffic at different times of the day. As your production increases, you need to optimise the workspace so that you can facilitate the maximum amount of people, vehicles and equipment whilst maintaining strict health and safety standards.
Partner with an Industrial Safety Specialist
Specialist companies like Brandsafe will help you to reorganise your safety systems and help you get more from your workspace. It could be as simple as putting an extra ‘break’ in your pedestrian walkways to allow vehicle traffic flow; adding in extra safety barriers; implementing bespoke segregation zones for safe picking and packing; Perspex screen systems (for segregating pick workers to operate in close proximity to co-workers to create the social distance measures associated with the current COVID-19 risks) or redesigning your entire traffic flow system – whatever solution will enable your facility to perform at its best whilst keeping your people healthy and the entire work environment safe. Proactive organisations that review their industrial workspaces will profit from healthier, happier and more productive workforces that can facilitate any increases in volume and demand.
Keep Workforces Happy, Safe and Productive
Keeping staff and operators at work by implementing these new high performance measures that need instating in today’s new workplace, will prove to be hugely profitable - if only to arrest the huge costs that will ensue by workers staying away from work through health issues or the fear of health issues. The businesses that invest and visibly demonstrate the improvements and measures being implemented to create the new health and safety standards of workspace environments where employees do not feel ‘vulnerable’, will ensure your staff and operators come to work - not only because they want to but also because they are safe and healthy to do so. You can clearly then conclude that the businesses who achieve this will not only have a workforce committed, present, safe and healthy, but will also achieve higher performance for the company’s top and bottom line (not to mention your customers who will also gain higher performance from you in terms of delivery and customer service).
Speak to Brandsafe for more information about implementing safety systems in the workplace.
Impact Prevention Should Go Hand-in-Hand with Impact Protection
When you’ve invested – in many cases – millions of pounds into a refurbished building or a purpose-built facility, you will want to protect the property, the assets and of course, the people. This is where colour and high visibility play an important role. When you’re thinking about the safety solutions around the workplace, you should seriously consider making zones that are at risk of impact, extremely visible through colour. It’s really important that the safety barrier does its job, should it be impacted, but preventing the impact in the first place, through high-visibility products, is a very important safety measure, which can often be overlooked. It’s the step before impact and it will ultimately prevent it. It’s important because things can be seen. The use of colour highlights risks and addresses key risk areas.
Quality Is Important
It’s incredible that I see many companies who have spent upwards of £50m on a new facility and they opt for painted bollards that will go rusty. Having made such a significant capital investment, don’t let it down with the finishing touches. Your facility will look tired before its time, plus it’ll cost you more money to have to re-paint on a bi-annual basis. Instead, opt for quality from the start, for example, galvanised steelwork for long-term corrosion protection, with the addition of vibrant colour polymer cover kits, will underscore your investment with the new generation of safety and impact protection solutions.
Underscoring Your Multi-Million Pound Investment
Don’t go for a mixture of products, of varying qualities, across multiple suppliers. Go for something that underscores your multi-million pound investment. You need a total solution that is sympathetic to your new investment and to your brand culture. You need to be thinking high-performing impact protection that looks as good as it performs. Some companies buy some products from a main contractor and then some from somewhere else. This lets the facility down at the last hurdle. To ensure the safety and the quality continuity throughout the site, engage with a specialist supplier in safety and impact protection.
Influencing Employee Behaviour
The influence that colour can have goes beyond immediate impact prevention. High quality safety investments will influence the safer behaviour that your new facility needs. It sets a standard and encourages a code of conduct and safety practice amongst the operations and production staff at a busy site. Being proud of the facility you work within will ensure you take more care – don’t underestimate that power.
Corporate Culture and Branding Benefits
Not only do coloured safety solutions provide functional benefits but the aesthetics can impact on culture, wellbeing and of course, impressions. Co-ordinating your safety fixtures and fittings with your corporate brand really can enhance as well as ensure longevity of the look and feel of your property.
The Importance of Working with an Industrial Safety Specialist
When it comes to the safety solution for your impact protection, you should consider a specialist partner who can consult and guide you through the process. High quality, high visibility fittings will bring you a long-lasting solution that withstands the test of time and impact. Your investment of the new facility is significant; make sure you underscore it with high-performing, highly durable, high-visibility safety fittings. Work with a partner who provides you the total solution and one that will match the colours to your needs – whether that’s a colour-coded system or for branding or aesthetic purposes – a good provider can assist you with bespoke colour solutions.
People Safety, Building Safety and Workplace Productivity
When it comes to safety-proofing the building there are a three main objectives that must be, not only achieved, but harmonised. These are the safety of people; the safety of the property (including internal fixtures and fittings) and the operational efficiency of the site. When you’ve invested millions of pounds into a new or renovated property, you need to protect the investment. If this is a productive workspace then you have the added complexity of making sure it’s operationally efficient and safe.
Select a Credible Partner
Do your homework and making sure you appoint a reputable partner / supplier, when it comes to impact safety in the workplace. It’s a very specialist area and, by selecting the right partner, you will surely save yourself time and money and you will achieve the right results for your site. Look at their website, read any case studies and speak to the organisation, to get a feel for their approach and expertise. Also think about how unique your solution needs to be. Some suppliers will answer the brief by curating a group of products together; the best suppliers will tailor-fit a solution – even adapt products – to deliver what the site really needs.
Provide a Solid Brief
A good partner will take the time to understand the site-specific needs, but it is always helpful if the customer is prepared with a brief. The supplier needs to understand the full purpose of the site or facility. For example, will it be automated, manual pick, high-bay racking. They need to know the purpose of the facility and how it will operate, so they can identify any risks and opportunities.
Get Your Specialist Partner Involved Early In the Process
As soon as your project is live, then involve your specialist impact protection partner. Essentially you’re getting a free-of-charge consultancy – they will make a valuable contribution to how the site functions and operates both safely and effectively.
Devise a Safety of People Plan
Working with your supplier, devise a Safety of People plan. If you have a lot of machinery and vehicles operating on site, then the safety of the operators – and all the people – is paramount. By doing this exercise, you naturally start to form a Protection of Property and Equipment Plan, which is the next logical step.
Devise a Protection of Property and Equipment Plan
As mentioned before, this goes hand-in-hand with the protection of your people, but allows you to explore and assess further risks to the property and equipment. From here you’ll identify areas and assets that require additional safeguarding.
Risk Assess Your Total Safety and Protection Requirements
This is the point where you get all the key stakeholders around the table to review the safety and protection requirements. This usually involves the architect, the developer / contractor, the proprietor and the specialist impact protection partner. There will always be site-specifics and different customer needs and risks, and this process will ensure you’ve covered everything – from safety of people and property, through to productivity and even the aesthetics, which really do matter too.
Refer Back to Your Plan Throughout
When it comes to the installation phase, make sure you keep referring back. Review your plans and review the marked-up drawings. Sometimes you will need to make changes. A good partner will be proactive and adopt a flexible approach to your potential change of needs or requirements.