What does best practice look like?
CONSTRUCT was invited by Niamh Burke H&S Lead for Realtime Civil Engineering to visit them on site in Cambridge. At recent CONSTRUCT Groundworks H&S meetings there has been discussion on people and plant interface; what must we be doing to safeguard our people on site and how can machine drivers be supported in the prevention of others entering into the operational envelope of the machines.
What we found to be common among all members was the realisation that at some time there is a need for someone to enter the danger zone. The CPA provide guidance on these circumstances and as you would expect it has been a helping to produce specific risk assessments for activities such as laying kerbs and lifting operations.
Some members were or had trialled tech (proximity detection systems) that either alerted the operator of unauthorised access into their danger zone or 2-way handheld radios between operator and banksman. Some had bad experiences with the radios, cameras and sensors. Sensors were picking up fixed objects, cameras were not clear and radios were clunky and there was channel frequency issues. The man and machine interface were not quite aligned for the work and working environment. For new tech to be embraced it needs to be fit for purpose and not frustrate the user. User requirements drive the system requirements.
Niamh spoke about working with Mace and how Realtime are embracing the Mace People / Plant Interface (PPI) Standard or at least the aim of the standard; which is to protect life. The extract below details Mace hierarchy of controls for PPI:
- Eliminate the hazard posed by People / Plant Interface by designing to avoid it.
- Where this is not possible, we will seek to reduce the risk, e.g introduction of physical segregation, and
- Only when this is shown to not be possible, will we rely on controls such as proximity detection systems.
During the site visit I could see that bullet points 1 and 2 took precedence. Segregation was very well delineated with the use of the colour green on handrails for safe walkways and red for the critical danger zones which were enclosed and supervised. I was interested in bullet point 3 and wanted to know how the system was performing and was it embraced by the site operatives.
The senior leadership team at Realtime really get how to influence change and manage it well. There ethos is not to force change on their operatives but to involve them. Within the Mace standard it stipulates a basic user requirement:
As a minimum the operator must be able to see at 1 metre high from any point of the perimeter of the plant.
The standard also includes some performance requirements of the detection and camera systems.
After a period of equipment trials Realtime selected the Safety Shield Detection System and Athena Freedom 2 (hands free radio comms) from dbd communications. The proximity detection system was very user friendly. Athena Freedom 2, is a full duplex system allowing the operator to communicate while plant is in operation and the banksman to be able to open gates, hold equipment etc.
A Realtime banksman said that it has made his job so much safer as now he can stand further away from the machine and communicate; it also saves time as he no longer needs to approach the cab to engage with the driver for verbal communication.
We tested the proximity sensors from all angles of approach; the operator receives an audible warning and a directional arrow illuminates on a display in the cab, either orange or red depending on how close the unauthorised person is to the machine. In addition to this, when the sensor detects a person close to the machine it then isolates the hydraulics. The quality of the 360 deg camera system is very high and of course the machine still has the various mirrors fitted which may become more obsolete as the tech is embraced and fitted at the factory, rather than endure the costs and time of a retro fit program.
In terms of the training burden; Safety Shield sent out field engineers to train the users of the equipment. They even offer an online management system via Safety Shield Vue portal. This gives users the ability to export data into multiple formats for use in health and safety monitoring, training presentations and management reports.
CONSTRUCT would like to thank Niamh and the team at Realtime Civil Engineering for allowing us the opportunity to see what best practice looks like.