The 2019 Design4Safety Award winners

The British Industrial Truck Association (BITA) has recognised innovative solutions for safer materials handling at the Design4Safety Awards 2019, held at IMHX.

"Improving safety within the materials handling industry has been - and remains - a top priority for BITA," said BITA secretary general James Clark.

In the Automation & Robotics category, the winner was Wessex Packaging for its ErgoPack mobile pallet strapping solution. ErgoPack significantly improves safety and ergonomics in the field of manual pallet strapping. It has helped to eliminate dizziness and exhaustion for operators at Amazon fulfilment centres.

In the hotly contested Industrial Vehicles category, the eventual winner was Combilift's multi-position tiller arm. This has been designed to allow operators to remain in the safest-possible position when working in narrow aisles, reducing the risk of them being crushed or trapped between the truck and the racking. The tiller arm also incorporates a monitor which always displays the position of the truck's rear wheel.

Narrowly missing out on the award was Crown for its new ESR 1000 reach truck with Gena operating system. Gena has been developed to be the electronic 'brain' of Crown's next generation trucks. In a move recognising the manufacturer's work, judges decided the entry should be Highly Commended.

In the Industrial Vehicles & Ancillary Products category, judges selected Elokon's ELOprotect system as the winner. The system uses two laser scanners, a display and an operating module to monitor its environment. It is automatically activated when a truck enters a narrow aisle and detects hazards such as people, other forklifts or obstacles, bringing the vehicle to a complete standstill and emitting visual and acoustic warnings to pedestrians and drivers.

In Racking & Shelving, PD Industrial was judged the winner for its Reloskate product, which has been specially designed to lift pallet racking structures without the need to dismantle or remove sprinkler pipes within the pallet racking, the first time the system has been used in the UK.

The Technology category was another to be keenly contested. After long deliberation, the award went to Toyota Material Handling UK for its Systems for Active Stability (SAS) program. By actively monitoring key parameters of the truck's performance, the SAS system acts before an unsafe operation occurs, thereby reducing the risk of possible accidents, while maximising pallet movements.

In Training & Operations, the award went to RTITB for its MyRTITB TrainingFriend software. This allows operators to be tested correctly on more than 120 machine types, ensuring they are qualified to use the equipment safely. The software provides users with current assessment documentation and auto-marks the tests to avoid any manipulation.

The final category, Warehouse Infrastructure, saw Campisa carry off the title for its Fidelity hydraulic drive. The Fidelity drive system does away with the conventional drive system for a sectional overhead door and its potentially dangerous parts, replacing it with a console system that can be used to operate both a sectional door and dock leveller.