15.12.2010

Penny Hydraulics Grid Lift wins safety awards

The pioneering use of Penny Hydraulics’ Grid Lift by UK based Atkins Highway Services has won two safety awards.

First, Atkins won the Highways Agency Health & Safety at Work Award, it then went on to win the Highway Operative & Site Safety Initiative Award.

The Grid Lift is used by tanker drivers to remove and replace heavy covers without manual handling when they are inspecting and cleaning roadside gullies and drains.

Simon White, contract director for highways services at Atkins said: “We’ve reduced reportable accidents related to gully cleaning operations to zero where before they accounted for around a third of incidents across the contract. We now introduce the Grid Lift into new contracts as we take them over. It’s become part of our standard way of working.”
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Gully covers were previously lifted in and out of position by hand, but employees were prone to back injuries and other long-term disabilities as a result of the amount of lifting they had to do day-to-day.

Penny Hydraulics worked with Atkins to develop the Grid Lift concept, based on its standard Swing Lift 250 knuckle crane which means it can be installed in many positions on the chassis to provide tanker builders and operators with much greater flexibility in the vehicle configuration.

There is no need for any manual handling of the cover and the entire process can be completed in around two minutes at each gully so that there is no impact on daily clearing rates and overall productivity. The whole unit folds away unobtrusively when not in use and is held securely in the retracted position by two independent locking pins.