frontWelcome to the February 1st edition of Warehouse & Logistics. As we go into the second month of the year, the weather’s still cold but the mornings are getting lighter, which sets the day off to a bright start.

READ THE February 1st ISSUE

 

In our features in this issue we look at The Loading Bay, Warehouse Flooring and Fork Trucks. Speaking of fork trucks, in our first feature of the year on this topic we have news of the trucks and solutions chosen for the final round of the IFOY Awards 2016. Interestingly a BYD truck produced in China has reached the Finals for the first time in the Awards’ history, showing the extraordinary technological progress made by Chinese manufacturers in the last few years. BYD’s three-wheeled ECB18C electric forklift truck was launched last December and is powered by a maintenance-free ironphosphate battery, which charges in one hour and does not need changing.

Workplace safety is quite rightly up there with efficiency and productivity as a top priority in the warehouse industry these days and storage equipment plays a crucial part.

On our front cover SEMA’s President Matt Grierson flags up that the legal burden on end users of storage systems to implement rigorous safety measures has now grown significantly in two respects.

First, in the HSE’s Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, which came into force last April, the client is now regarded as head of the procurement chain and the major influence on project standards and culture, so things go wrong it’s all down to them.

Second, new sentencing guidelines for Health and Safety offences come into effect this month, February 2016, which mean businesses and individuals could face much greater fines and more individuals could face prison sentences for serious offences than ever before.

Finally on a lighter note, as we went to press much of the world was mourning the passing of three great English entertainers, David Bowie, Alan Rickman and Lemmy of Motorhead, who all died within a few days of each other. Here’s our contribution to the media coverage, a bit of warehouserelated Bowie trivia. Which track on the ‘Ziggy Stardust’ album has the line “My brain hurt like a warehouse, it had no room to spare. I had to cram so many things to store everything in there”? Turn to page 4 for the answer!

Have a good month.

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