By Colin Hinton, Course Leader and Member of the Technical Committee to the Storage Equipment Manufacturers’ Association.

Colin Hinton, Course Leader and Member of
the Technical Committee to the Storage
Equipment Manufacturers’ Association.

Both SEMA and the HSE recommend that racking and shelving should be inspected regularly. There are three levels of inspection; operators reporting any damage, a regular (weekly) inspection and an annual inspection by an expert inspector.

SEMA runs a very popular course (usually fortnightly) on Rack Safety Awareness, which has recently been updated and is there to support individuals who will be responsible for the regular inspections or operation of adjustable pallet racking. It aims to help delegates understand the importance of a rigorous routine and the methods of identifying, reporting and inspecting damage together with the required follow up actions.

Attendees learn about the most up-to-date responsibilities of everyone involved in the safe operation of the storage system; how critical it is to operate a system of damage identification, what the actions should be and how to understand reporting systems and documentation.

Of specific relevance, it identifies and explains the SEMA traffic light method of classifying racking damage levels as green, amber or red risk. This damage classification system should be used for both the regular inspection and the annual inspection. SEMA recommend that the annual inspection should be undertaken by a SEMA Approved Racking Inspector (SARI).

Categorising damage the SEMA way New for 2017, delegates are encouraged to use SEMA’s traffic light damage analysis system by holding up Red, Amber and Green “damage” cards in response to images shown on a series of slides.

The new course has been updated with the requirements of RIDDOR 2013 and also clarifies the unloading requirements for beam, upright and bracing damage. This represents a substantial revision to the previous rack safety awareness course and documentation.

2017 marks the association’s 50th year of service. SEMA is recognised as a governing training body of the UK storage industry and in 2016, earned the right to manage their own SEIRS dedicated, registered training scheme which meets the standards imposed by the Construction Leadership Council.

The underlying theme to the current agenda is that of “Safeguarding”. The SEMA Rack Safety Course is just one of many ways in which SEMA specifically support the storage industry by continually improving standards of safe design, safe manufacture and safe installation together with safe maintenance procedures.

SEMA

For further information and to book a place on a course, please contact Paula Porter on 0121 601 6718 email: pporter@sema.org.uk www.sema.org.uk

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