Reducing manual handling
Materials handling equipment specialist Lift Safe has worked with Holland’s in a bid to reduce manual handling. Holland’s Pies, one of the UK’s best known producers of pies and pastries, has been making them for over 160 years.
Following a series of manual handling assessments, Holland’s Pies, which employs over 300 people, identified the need to reduce, and ideally eliminate, the risk of manual handling to avoid injuries, such as musculoskeletal disorders and repetitive strain injuries, caused by lifting heavy equipment.
Materials handling equipment specialist Lift Safe supplied eight handling machines. These include two 90kg capacity reel lifters; a stainless steel 125 kg lifter with stainless steel forks to raise sterilised tubs of cubed beef on to stainless steel trolleys; another stainless steel lifter fitted with a rotating stainless steel attachment for tipping the tubs into cooking pans; an electric truck lift for pallets containing trays of pies to allow them to be put into glazing machines at waist height; and two hydraulic high-lift scissor pallet trucks to enable loading in the manufacturing department.
“Working with our colleagues and Lift Safe we have come up with significant improvements in this area,” explains Jason Clark, Walter Holland health & safety manager. “Operators can now stack the trays from waist height, so there is no longer any need for excessive bending and lifting.”
