Back strains or sprained joints caused by incorrect load handling
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accounts for millions of lost man-days every year. EU legislation could change this sorry state of affairs as new trailers and loading equipment become more protective as well as more productive. We have been E looking at how the likes of Parceline and White Rose have managed to boost load capacity without y sacrificing handling safety.
In terms of trailer load capacity the best way to get a quart into a pint pot is to opt for double-deckers. The concept has been around for more than a decade: it has been translated into many body styles featuring occasional or fixed upper decking, moving full-length floors or a combination of short deck sections. Some even have underfloor tanks for carrying heavy liquids with return loads being carried on top.
However, they are all built to provide loading operatives with a much higher degree of safety than ever before. This is mainly due to regulations that require employers to weigh up and minimise any likely risk to their employees.
The catalyst was European Directive 90/269/EEC that set minimum requirements for manual handling of loads and forced the UK to table the Manual Handling Operations Regulations that came into force on 1 January 1993. As a result all new vehicles are equipped to take most of the heave-ho out of everyday tasks.
A good example of this is the wedgeshaped Tidd twin-deckers installed for Parceline's new overnight trunking operation between Smethwick and Glasgow. Parceline needed to ensure smooth, efficient loading and unloading, while keeping safe handling firmly in mind.
It wanted a 105m3 trailer to take parcels or pallet loads on two decks with 2.0m of headroom and loaded from 1.2m-high loading bays. The low (875mm) ride-height trailer's shallow slope was fine in transit but to ensure there was no "uphill" loading when positioned against the 1.2m-high dock, the decks had to be horizontal. To achieve this the suspension is deflated to align the two floors. Once laden it's raised to a safe level leaving a full 2.0m of headroom at the front and more at the rear.
According to general manager of transport Charlie Shields, Parceline is ultra-careful where lifting floors are used and insisted on simple but effective safety control systems. Warehouses can be noisy places at night so horns and beacons are fitted beneath the upper deck and there's a 10-second delay on floor movement, just in case. Hand control sets have clearly marked deadman-type buttons incorporating an emergency stop. "If floor movement is too slow people complain but if it's too fast then you could have a problem," says Shields. "We've opted for a slow but steady rate of travel—our decks take 110 seconds to make a full descent".
Parcels are loaded in from front to rear via conveyors. To keep them to a safe height the operator uses a travelling frame that acts as a height limiter.
When filled the floor is raised to its travelling position and the suspension is inflated to bring the main deck to dock level.
Clearance
Farceline also has the option of loading palletised goods inside; the 2.0m minimum headroom allows ample clearance.
The trailer design has been through roll stability testing at MIRA and, even with the top floor loaded and the lower deck empty, Shields reports that it has excellent handling characteristics. Parceline has six in service with 40 more in the pipeline.
A few years ago Yorkshire Water decided to exercise greater control over the disposal of waste in its area and set up its White Rose Environmental subsidiary Since then it has grown into a national operation with more than 30 vehicles based at Oldham, Leeds Newcastle, Sidcup and Bournemouth and the waste carrying fleet is being reequipped with a new design of vehicle.
The move has brought about something of a culture change, says Service Centre manager George Aitkin. In the past staff were used to heaving wheeled containers around; the new vehicles have made the work much smoother and easier.
Swap bodies built by Bevan Motor Bodies of Birmingham on to a mix of Mercedes, Scania and Volvo rigid chassis enclose Ray Smith's twin-deck system and are serviced mainly by Ratcliff two-tier recessed tail-lifts.
The 3.1m-high, 7.2m-long bodies are demounted at major customers like hospitals or health clinics where porters are trained to operate the lift and floor system and stow the laden, locked 820-litre wheeled bins. Bodies are changed regularly; other vehicles provide a bin collection service for smaller clients. Bins are then taken to the company's own incinerators.
In operation barn doors seal the lower aperture with the tail-lift closing the top section. There are clear controls for the lift and the moving floor.
Two bins can be carried on the 1.9m-deep platforms which have hinged ramps for the bins to be ride up. These flip up to stop the bins rolling backwards should their brakes fail and for extra security there are substantial side rails with a safety strap across the rear. Operatives have 1.82m of headroom when loading in the lower chamber and up to 36 bins can be stowed inside,three abreast on each floor.
Among the most straightforward ways to load product into vehicle bodies are the range moving floors and body stuffing platforms made by Lincoln-based Transdek. It includes a split-deck system, with up to six sections, that allows side and rear access to curtainsiders. There's also a simple sliding platform for cramming loads into the body—this is proving popular with hauliers keen to maximise on capacity and to make loading easier. One contented user is Vacu-Lug, which has six 12.2m semi-trailers equipped with MegaDek load platforms.
Layers
These, says Transdek, can accommodate more than 400 wide single trailer tyres in three layers, compared with 230 in its older 2.4m-high box trailers and 300 in its double. deckers (which are also six tonnes heavier).
More importantly for Vacu-Lug's loaders, the platform makes the task of handling those big, black 84kg doughnuts so much easier— tyres previously had to be rolled inside then up a plank into the rear, causing any number of back injuries. Now they are rolled onto the platform in fours, flipped into position and pulled hack on for off-loading.
"Historically their very shape and weight has been behind many a pulled back muscle," says distribution manager Stan Humberstone, "so they're definitely a step in the right direction. The use of these platforms has also helped to increase our carrying capacity." As Humberstone points out, the new generation of trailers are not just user-friendly, they're more productive.
0 by Bryan Jarvis