• Loading delivery containers with large rolls of material posed a high risk of back and upper limb injury
• A simple loading platform was devised that reduced the risks by avoiding manual handling at above head height.

Warehouse staff manually loaded 1.5 metre long rolls of soft flexible product into containers for delivery to customers.  The rolls were awkward to handle and some had to be lifted to a height of 3 metres to fully fill the container.  3 staff loaded 10 containers per day so the work was repetitive.

Staff began reporting neck and shoulder pain, and risk assessment identified loading the higher layers in the container as the main source of risk.

Managers and workers set up a focus group to consider solutions.  It was not possible to change the product or its packaging, and as the company was relatively small it was not financially viable to bring in a height adjustable conveyor.  Instead, it was found the nature of the load enabled a stable temporary platform to be formed within the container by placing boards on part of the bottom layer of rolls.  A worker standing on this could load rolls up to roof height with much less effort than before.

Old method (left) and new method with worker standing on boarded platform (right)

Staff using the new method no longer suffered neck and shoulder pains.  They also found it possible to load more rolls of product into each container, which gave the firm big savings in transport costs.  The change to the new method cost only £1,500 and the payback period was under 2 months.

For a detailed economic analysis of this case study, see HSE Research Report RR 491