Getting Heavy Machinery Health and Safety Right Every Time

Martyn Goodwin is our new Project Manager, who’s brought his considerable experience as an engineer and HSE manager to Merritt’s Health and Safety team. It’s his job to meticulously plan and oversee every step of all our projects. We make sure everything meets the correct industry regulations, including the latest environmental guidelines, and all of our equipment is regularly tested and fully certificated.

Our health and safety team are specialists in these key areas:

Project Planning

Everything starts at the planning stage. It’s here that we allocate the time and resources to a job. It includes careful consideration about vehicles, specialist equipment and key personnel that need to be used to ensure the smooth, safe running of a project. The wrong equipment, too little time or not enough people onsite can lead to problems and unnecessary risks.

Find out more about how we prepare for a project.

Risk Assessments

We always undertake a thorough risk assessment to identify potential risks and issues at the locations where we’ll be working. A key component of the planning process it ensures we can take pre-emptive measures to manage the risks and protect everyone involved in the move. Most risk assessments will also include a Fire Risk assessment, which are essential when we’re dealing with hazardous or flammable materials.

Construction – Design and Management (CDM) Regulations

These regulations define the legal duties for clients, designers and contractors to ensure safe operations when we’re working on UK construction sites. It’s about having the right people for the right job and good planning so that when we’re onsite health and safety is always at the forefront of what we do.

Find out more about CDM on the Health and Safety Executive website.

Work Method Statements

These are common practice in construction which is why we routinely draw up work method statements to define how we will safely perform a task or operate a piece of machinery. It works in conjunction with a lot of our other health and safety practices to establish a consensus between our employees and our clients on how the work will be undertaken.

Site Inductions

Site inductions are critical as well as being standard procedure. It helps our workers to familiarise themselves with particular hazards and risks at a location where we will be working. It’s essential everyone on the team does it before we even start to work on the site.

Incident Reporting

In the event that something doesn’t go according to plan we’ll create an incident report. These are standard forms for recording details of an unusual event that occurs while we’re working on a project. It’s important that we record as much detail as possible at the time so this document will be useful for dealing with liability issues and will help in the planning of similar projects in the future.

Form F10 notification to HSE

Before the project is even undertaken we need to submit an F10 notification to the HSE. It includes information such as project address, project description, project duration, client details, principal contractor details, CDM coordinator details, project start and finish dates. The form must also be signed by the client to confirm they are aware of their duties and the regulations.

Essential qualifications and certification

We understand that Health & Safety is of paramount importance within the workplace. Our Health & Safety team has over 30 years’ experience working within a variety of industry sectors. The following are a selection of the recognised qualifications and accreditations that we have and continue to maintain. We find that they instil confidence in our customers; who can see that every project will be carried out to the correct guidelines and regulations.

IOSH – The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health is the largest chartered body for health and safety professionals in the world. www.iosh.co.uk

NEBOSH – The National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health offers a wide range of globally recognised qualifications aimed at meeting the health, safety and environmental management needs of all places of work. www.nebosh.org.uk

Safecontractor – A health and safety assessment scheme that offers tailored, industry specific training to promote high standards of competence and compliance. www.safecontractor.com

PRINCE 2 – An acronym for PRojects IN Controlled Environment,s this internationally recognised project management methodology encompasses high level management, control and organisation of a project. www.prince2.com

ROSPA – The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents is a charity that provides health and safety training with the express aim of saving lives and reducing injuries in the workplace. www.rospa.com

Six Sigma Management Awareness – Six Sigma facilitates a set of techniques and tools for businesses to improve processes, performance and ultimately save money. www.sixsigmagroup.co.uk

Kaizen – The philosophy or practices that focus upon continuous improvement for a business through its people, processes and systems. uk.kaizen.com

Never standing still

In order to stay an industry leader for machine moves we have our own in-house training academy. This means that our coordinators get access to the latest training methods and standards as soon as they are developed. It’s this knowledge that is then relayed to all of our team to ensure we remain at the forefront of the industry for health and safety procedures, and complex lifting practices.

Some more essential facts about Merritt Training:

• We been providing industrial training services for over 20 years.
• We provide training for individuals, companies and public sector organisations.
• Courses are delivered both at our training centre in Kirkby-in-Ashfield and at customers’ premises.
• Merritts are RTITB accredited, which is the largest training body for lift truck accreditation in the UK www.rtitb.co.uk
• We are also JAUPT approved, which means we can provide Periodic Training www.jaupt.org.uk

Click here to find out more about all the courses available with Merritt Training.

Other accreditations and qualifications:

We are also members of the RHA (Road Haulage Association) and the CPA (Construction Plant-Hire Association).  And because our work takes us all over the place we also keep up to date on qualifications through the SQA (Scottish Qualifications Authority).