Page 119 - Alex Ruscuklic - Complete Works

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Design for safety – the low risk worksite
You don’t need a purpose-built greenfield site to manage forklift safety, but many businesses have outgrown their original sites and ‘making do’ with what they have may no longer be acceptable.
The first consideration in reducing potential human risk factors is to design safe workplaces.
Designers must ensure safe design, testing and dissemination of relevant information to recipients, including
ergonomic considerations.
They need to demonstrate a clear understanding of the business to be conducted and plan workplace layouts with full recognition of the hazards created by the introduction of mobile plant – factoring in risk reduction strategies, and engineering-out forklift stability hazards as key considerations.
The workplace must be well lit, with wide aisles to allow backing and turning, and flat, well-maintained surfaces capable of taking the weight of mobile plant and their loads. If these basic requirements cannot be provided, the added risks that are produced must be managed.
In Victoria, failure to design a workplace building or structure to be safe can incur a penalty as high as $270,000 for a company and $55,000 for individuals.
Plant design, manufacture and supply companies also face indictable offences and financial penalties of close to $1,000,000 if they don’t comply and people are exposed to subsequent risk of injury. Individuals may face fines of up to $200,000.
Manufacturers must make and test plant and provide information about safe operating procedures to avoid identified hazards.
Suppliers are obligated under the Act to ensure that the supplied plant is safe for the purpose it is intended to be used and to supply appropriate information to the recipients and users.
So what does it take to make your workplace safe?
• Thorough risk assessments, training, supervision involving employees, contractors and labour hire workers – also forklift operators trained in the use of specific machines and attachments, and who are familiar with the workplace layout and safe work procedures;
• Systems to ensure the right tool (forklift and attachment) is used on each job;
• Regular reviews of work practices and workplace design issues (some warehouses operate with one-way traffic or a
drop-and-spin system to limit the number of traffic movements and eliminate unexpected traffic movements);
• Trainee operators must be under the control of a qualified, supervising operator with line of sight and hearing;
• Systems for recording incidents (including ‘near misses’) and eliminating reported hazards;
• Operators who complete a daily checklist to ensure safe operating condition (e.g. check if warning signals such as lights and reversing buzzers work, test and use restraints);
• Means of physically separating pedestrians and mobile plant – fixed guarding, marked walkways, signage and chains are part of the safety equation;
• Operators who are appropriately restrained within the roll over protective structure in the event of a lateral tip (WorkSafe Victoria supports retro-fitting of ergonomic seatbelt seats and/or operator restraint devices meeting Australian Design specifications as per AS 2359.1, Clause 7.5).
Forklifts with ergonomic seating and seatbelts or other restraints reduce injuries;
• Safe Working Loads which consider not just the weight of loads but also safety when the tines and load is raised or tilted;
• Attachments with load capacity plates which are manufactured in accordance with specifications supported by the forklift manufacturer or AS 2359.1, and used in accordance with AS 2359.2,
• Protective measures to ensure forklifts and their operators are safe from hazardous zones such as fixed plant,
and service pits – for example, automatic loading dock levellers with sufficient capacity and edges clearly defined
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