19.04.2011

Pop-Up + incident

UK based construction company Balfour Beatty issued a safety bulletin last week concerning an incident with a Pop-Up +.

The full and unedited text of the bulletin is as follows:

“Pop-Up+ Failed to Stop when Raised

An incident occurred on a Mansell project on Tuesday 29th March. An operative was working from a 'POP Up +' During the work the operative attempted to elevate the platform. Once the platform was going up the operative then tried to stop the platform using the stop button but the platform continued to rise.

The operative tried the emergency stop but this failed to have any effect. The platform continued to rise stopping at the structure above forcing the
operative to crouch into the basket and avoid injury. Another worker was able to
lower the basket using the ground level controls.

Mansell have commenced a full investigation. The Pop Up equipment will undergo
further examination. In the interim as a minimum please can you advise all sites
where this type of equipment is being used to ensure:

• That the equipment arrives on site with a copy of it's current in date Thorough Test and Examination certificate

• Before the equipment is used a competent operator (IPAF certified) must check in a safe area (no overhead obstructions) that the controls are in full working order.

• Where any doubt exists regarding the correct functioning of the equipment it must be placed in quarantine and the supplier contacted to have a fully competent engineer check the equipment.”

Please register to see all images

The original bulletin

We contacted Pop-Up Products which informed us that the incident had been brought its attention and that a full statement would be issued by its manufacturing partner Snorkel.
The statement- again unedited is as follows:

STATEMENT
Snorkel, the company with design and manufacturing responsibility for Pop-Up machines, is issuing the following statement, on behalf of Pop-Up Products Ltd:

“This is an isolated incident, confined to one Pop-Up lift out of an in-service fleet of more than 6,000 delivered over approximately five years. We are currently carrying out extensive analysis of the machine in question and have so far been unable to recreate the problem. Our investigations are continuing.

“We are also investigating the apparent malfunction of the Emergency Stop control as reported and when all the facts are clearly understood will issue a further bulletin. We anticipate this to be within the next few days.”

At this stage there is nothing much we can add to these two statements, fortunately no one has been injured and it does appear to be an isolated case. However both the contractor and the producers are taking the occurrence seriously and following the correct procedures.

We will follow up on this incident in the coming days, in the meantime both Snorkel and Pop-Up says that they are happy to discuss any concerns that anyone may have.

Vertikal Comment

Cases such as this are notoriously hard to deal with and thankfully very rare, the initial challenge is to discover what might or could have caused it. All too often it is an unlikely combination of events that is tough to replicate.

All a manufacturer can do in such a case is to take it seriously and look at any possible string of events that might be capable of causing such a malfunction and then take steps to prevent a repetition. Thankfully most reputable manufacturers these days do exactly that and do notify dealers, customers and others of such an issue.

In the bad old days – that still prevail within some marginal producers – the company would automatically say that they had never heard of such a thing before and try and ignore it or even silence any discussion or dissention. Only when dozens of users were experiencing the same problem and tempers becoming frayed would the engineers acknowledge that there really might be a problem and start to look at it.

Thankfully those days are ‘largely’ behind us.