Who Performs Rack Inspections at Santa’s Warehouse?

Rack Inspections at Santa’s Warehouse

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, but it would be a dangerous time if Santa didn’t have some kind of safety system

Being Santa can’t be easy. The man in red isn’t just the CEO of the biggest non-profit organisation in the world; he’s also the face of Christmas itself. The bulk of his work happens on Christmas Eve, but Santa’s operational facility would need to work all year round in order for supply to meet demand.

And demand is high! According to the World Bank, children under the age of 14 make up 26% of the total population. Not all of those children will get presents, of course. Some will be on Santa’s naughty list and others might not believe in Santa. Even still, that still leaves Santa with 1.5 billion presents to make a year.

How Does Santa Do It? Making the Numbers Work?

Making that many presents in a year is doable with the right workforce size. Over the course of 10 years, Apple has sold over 1.2 billion iPhones. With a workforce ten times the size of Apple’s, Santa could create a similar number of a iPhones in 10 years. The issue, however, is that Apple only makes Apple products. Santa’s elves need to make a whole variety of products for a whole variety of well-behaved children.

This too is feasible with the right-sized workforce. After all, Amazon has twice as many employees as Apple and, with 2.1 million employees, Walmart has nearly ten times as many employees as Amazon. Put that all together and it’s not a stretch to imagine around a couple million elves making 1.5 billion presents in a year.

The real issue, though, is not production. The real issue is storage. We’ve long known that Santa has a workshop full of elves who produce his presents and that he delivers them on a sledge drawn by magical reindeer. No-one is disputing that.

The question is: how and where can you safely store 1.5 billion presents? This is where rack inspections and rack inspection safety come into play.

Rack Inspections Aren’t Done By Magic

The first thing to figure out is how big a warehouse which stores 1.5 billion presents needs to be. Or rather, if Santa needs more than one warehouse, how many warehouses will he need?

Amazon provides us with an answer here. In 2014, Amazon sold five billion products. That’s several times the number of presents which Santa delivers on Christmas Eve. Still, unlike Amazon, Santa needs to be able to store all 1.5 billion presents in one place and deliver all of them in one day.

Even still, the two business models are certainly comparable. With that in mind, how many warehouses does Amazon have and how big are they? Amazon has around 130 warehouses worldwide and over 70 of them are in the US. Based on those figures, Santa would need around 45 Amazon-sized warehouses in order to store 1.5 billion presents.

This would mean a lot of rack inspections. However, once again, if Amazon can do it, Santa can, too.

Who Performs Rack Inspections at Santa’s Warehouse?

Being Santa’s only employees, elves would seem like the obvious choice here. However, it’s not as simple as that. HSE recommends regular rack inspections from competent staff members, so these could be performed by elves, but it also recommends annual rack inspections from a SEMA approved racking inspector.

Of course, Santa’s warehouse is not in the UK. However, it’s fair to assume that it’s in the EU. The tradition of Santa Claus is a Nordic one and Finland, an EU country, claims that Lapland is the home of Santa.

As such, rack inspections in Santa’s warehouse would need to come under EU law. This means — according to EU standard EN 15635 — that expert rack inspections would also need to be carried out at least once every 12 months alongside the regular rack inspections performed by Santa’s elves.

This isn’t problematic for a business like Amazon, whose secrecy isn’t important. For Santa, though, secrecy is vital for his brand, as well as the magic of Christmas. As such, we can only assume that the Finnish inspectors who visit Santa’s warehouse do so under strict instruction that they never reveal his the location of his secret warehouse.

Who exactly gets the prestigious honour of performing a rack inspection at Santa’s warehouse is unknown. However, it’s worth pointing out that there is only one SEMA approved racking inspector in the whole of Finland…

For a rack inspection or rack inspection training from a SEMA approved racking inspector, contact Storage Equipment Experts today. Whether your business is in Ireland or the UK, we offer complete coverage. Sadly, we don’t do visits to the North Pole…

HSE Inspectors: What’s Their Stance on Racking Protectors?

HSE Inspectors uk

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) couldn’t exist without hard-working inspectors and safety professionals of all kinds, so their stance on racking protectors matters a lot.

Ever since its formation in 1974, HSE has helped to improve working conditions for millions of British people. As a result, workplace fatalities have fallen by 85%. However, the organisation recognises that there’s still more work to be done, and it’s because of this belief in constant improvement that HSE’s standards are so high.

HSE’s stance on racking protectors is an example of its high standards. While these metal plates are designed to protect a racking system, they can actually make a workplace less safe when not used properly.

Some Background on HSE Inspectors

Typically, a HSE inspector is someone with a background in engineering or applied sciences. This might be through a university degree, some other kind of formal education, relevant work experience, or an apprenticeship.

The job is a 9-5 one, but HSE inspectors might have to work on weekends in the event of some kind of emergency. Most HSE inspectors work for HSE, but others might work for local councils or for large organisations. Due to government cuts, the number of HSE inspectors is decreasing. At the same time, the number of SEMA Approved Racking Inspectors is increasing — albeit slowly.

SEMA Approved Racking Inspectors (SARIs) are HSE inspectors of a sort. HSE recommends a racking inspection from a SARI at least every 12 months and it labels both SARIs and their inspections as “expert”. However, SARIs are not employed by HSE, a local council, or a large organisation. Though their expertise is recognised by HSE, many SARIs are freelancers.

What SARIs share in common with HSE inspectors are their backgrounds, their knowledge, and their stance on racking protectors. For businesses, the difference between HSE inspectors and SARIs is that HSE inspectors operate under a fee for intervention scheme and SARIs don’t.

In other words, if there is anything wrong with your workplace, your fine will include a charge designed to recover the costs lost from inspecting your workplace. This change in rules has also been brought on by government cuts as a cost-saving measure, and the result has been a sharp increase in fines.

By contrast, a SARI’s job isn’t to fine people. At Storage Equipment Experts, if we find something wrong with your workplace during an inspection, our aim is to help you. We want to make sure that you know exactly what’s wrong with your storage system so that you can fix it.

What Are Racking Protectors?

Both HSE inspectors and SARI inspectors sing from the same hymnbook when it comes to warehouse safety, and this is especially the case with regards to racking protectors. These protectors are often installed next to an upright. At the 2015 SEMA Safety Conference, SEMA made the SARI and HSE stance on racking protectors clear.

Their aim is to protect a racking system, but a common issue with them is overreliance. Too many warehouse workers treat racking protectors like goggles. Just as goggles are there to protect your eyes from the snow which will inevitably fly into your face, so too are racking protectors their to protect a racking system from inevitable collisions.

This attitude is wrong. Collisions with racking protectors are not inevitable, and they should be avoided as much as possible. Operating under the assumption that a racking protector will be used is the wrong idea.

Instead, warehouse workers should imagine racking protectors like bike helmets. Just as bike helmets are designed to protect someone’s head in the event of a crash, so too are racking protectors designed to protect a racking system in the event of a collision.

Both pieces of safety equipment are very important, but they are there as a last resort. The best form of protection for cyclists against crashing isn’t the helmet, but road safety awareness. Equally, the best form of protection for a racking system isn’t the racking protector, but racking safety awareness.

To make sure that you are using your racking protectors properly and to avoid a fine from HSE inspectors, contact Storage Equipment Experts today for a racking inspection by a SEMA Approved inspector!

Warehouse Shelving and Warehouse Racking

Warehouse Racking

For any warehouse owner, it’s important to know your long span shelving from your cantilever racking.

Warehouse racking and warehouse shelving comes in many different forms. In order to run a safe and profitable warehouse, you’ll need to know about these different forms.

Warehouse Shelving or Warehouse Racking?

The terms warehouse shelving and warehouse racking are often used synonymously. By and large, warehouse shelving tends to refer to smaller storage systems, whereas warehouse racking refers to bigger ones.

Still, HSE offers a better distinction than that. In HSG 76, it defines warehouse racking as “a skeletal framework, of fixed or adjustable design, to support loads generally without the use of shelves”. This would suggest that a warehouse storage system which uses shelves is classified as warehouse shelving, whereas any other kind of warehouse storage system counts as warehouse racking.

HSE does concede, though, that some racking systems might contain shelves as well, expression “generally without use of shelves”. This confuses things somewhat, and it’s probably why so many people refer to both systems as synonyms.

In order to educate warehouse owners on the different systems they’ll be using, we are going to run through the different kinds of warehouse shelving, as well as the different kinds of warehouse racking.

1. Longspan Shelving

The most popular kind of warehouse shelving is longspan shelving. This type of shelving is versatile and incredibly basic. It consists of a flat, long shelf of wood or metal, and a metal skeleton to hold it together. When most people imagine shelving, they imagine the simplicity of longspan shelving.

Longspan warehouse shelving can be modified with extension bays to add more height to the system or with galvanised shelves for refrigerated storage. However, any sort of shelving or racking installation needs to be done by a certified professional or by someone qualified.

What’s more, be sure that any modification of your system does not breach the end user agreement or void the storage equipment manufacturer or producer’s guarantee.

2. Tyre Racking

Tyre racking is sometimes known as tyre shelving. However, as a tyre storage system doesn’t have any shelves, tyre racking is a more accurate description. Like cantilever racking, this system is designed in a way which makes it inconvenient for most kinds of storage, but extremely convenient for certain kinds of storage.

If you store tyres in your warehouse, tyre racking is designed to be the best possible system. It’s the safest, easiest, and best way to store tyres in a warehouse.

3. Clothing System

Just as tyres need a unique storage solution, so too do clothes. It might well be that your clothes are folded and stored in boxes. In which case, longspan shelving or pallet racking would suffice. However, for hanging clothes, there are specific systems out there.

Adjustable Pallet Racking

If longspan racking is the most popular and versatile warehouse shelving system, adjustable pallet racking is the most popular and versatile racking system. Instead of shelves, adjustable pallet racking uses pallets which can be adjusted vertically. This allows for a wide variety of storage.

Of course, sometimes, a generic system isn’t the best. This is why cantilever racking and other storage systems exist. Still, for a business which stores a variety of items, pallet racking systems remain immensely popular.

Mezzanine Racking System

A mezzanine racking system is a storage system with stairs and walkways which allow staff members to climb the system, but only in a very specific way. This is the only kind of racking system which can be climbed on, which is why there are strict guidelines regarding the load-bearing capacity.

Drive-Through Racking

For warehouses which use forklifts or other kinds of vehicles, drive-through racking is a great option. It’s designed to allow for the safe passage of vehicles, but drivers should still take extra care when operating a vehicle in a warehouse.

This means using rack protectors correctly, as outlined in HSE HSG76, by only using them as a last resort and it also means referring to the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations (LOLER) 1998.

Cantilever Racking

Pretty much all racking systems are variations on a pallet racking system. The most notable exception to this a cantilever racking system. A cantilever racking system consists of arms instead of pallets. The result is the ability to store long, thin objects — like timber or steel beams — much better than a pallet racking system could.

Because cantilever racking systems are specialist, they require specialist inspectors. The SEMA Approved Racking Inspector (SARI) from Storage Equipment Experts is one of the only SARIs to be qualified by SEMA to inspect cantilever racking as well as all kinds of pallet racking.

For inspection or inspection training on warehouse shelving or any kind of warehouse racking, contact Storage Equipment Experts. Phone us for a FREE consultation and for nationwide coverage for the whole of the UK and nationwide coverage for the whole of Ireland, too.

Should I Give My Staff SEMA Racking Training This Christmas?

Christmas Gift SEMA Racking Training

SEMA racking training isn’t a gift you can wrap, but it’s still a welcome addition to Christmas

If you want your staff to be driving home for Christmas, you’ll need a safe workplace. SEMA racking trainings can help you with that. However, that doesn’t mean that every staff member needs SEMA racking training.

What is SEMA Racking Training?

SEMA racking trainings is any kind of rack safety course run by SEMA. We offer rack safety training courses run by a SEMA approved racking inspector, but this is not the same as SEMA racking trainings.

Do My Staff Need SEMA Racking Training?

HSE recommends regular racking inspections from staff members and it also recommends that each warehouse has a person responsible for racking safety (PRRS). According to the CDM Regulations 2015, it is your duty as an employer to make sure that anyone performing a task like racking inspection or performing a role like the PRRS is “competent”.

To achieve this competency, SEMA racking trainings or racking inspection training from a SEMA approved racking inspector (SARI) are both good options. HSE labels SEMA, SARIs, and the work they both perform as “expert”. As such, it’s fair to assume that someone successfully trained by SEMA or a SARI to inspect racking would be deemed “competent”.

What Does SEMA Racking Training Involve?

This depends entirely on the course, but inspection is probably the most important aspect of any SEMA racking training course or any course performed by a SARI. The reason for this is that inspection is the aspect of racking safety which requires the most explanation.

Safe installation of racking mostly involves making sure that the person doing the installation. Safe use of racking mostly involves following the manufacturer’s instructions, especially with regards to load notices. However, safe inspection of racking involves knowing what to inspect, how often to inspect, what to do in the event of damage, and what damage or misuse actually looks like.

That last part is often the trickiest thing to spot and the easiest thing to miss. Knowing whether or not a racking system is missing a small part and knowing how integral this part is to the whole system is just one example of something which can require training. After all, it’s impossible to say for certain if a storage system is unsafe if you don’t know exactly what safe looks like, exactly what unsafe looks like, and what exactly makes a system safe or unsafe.

Is SEMA Racking Training Enough?

Giving your staff SEMA racking training — or training from a SARI — will likely be enough to class them as competent. However, the important thing to remember about safety is that it is a continuous process, rather than a one-time thing.

As such, you will also need to make sure that your trained staff perform racking inspections on a regular basis. For this, HSE recommends a traffic light system, where no damage is marked as green and damage is marked as amber or red, depending on its severity. Each colour then requires a different action.

This means that it’s not enough for your staff to passively receive the training. They need to actively use this training on a regular basis through regular inspections. What’s more, they need to act upon any damage they find in the warehouse.As well as all that, you will need to ensure that your staff receives an inspection at least once every 12 months from a SARI.

For racking inspection or racking inspection trainings from one of the only SARIs qualified by SEMA to inspect pallet racking and cantilever racking, contact Storage Equipment Experts today for a FREE consultation. We offer nationwide coverage for both the whole of the UK and Ireland.

How Racking Safety Can Prevent Warehouse Fires?

Warehouse Fires

Racking safety is just one part of a larger commitment to safety in general — and warehouse fires are just one of the many things which adhering to warehouse safety can prevent.

Warehouse fires often make headlines because of their scale. Yet, after the drama of a fire has burnt out, not enough attention is paid to the lessons learnt from these tragedies. A warehouse fire in Oakland killed 36 people and burned the whole building to the ground. As a result, two men were eventually charged with manslaughter after failing to properly take responsibility for the safety of the people inside their building.

All of this received plenty of coverage, as many expressed their condolences for the victims and their anger towards those responsible. What has not received enough coverage or attention, however, is how fires like this can be prevented in future.

Racking Safety Can Lessen The Main Causes of Warehouse Fires

For Ian Gough, senior technical advisor at BAFSA, the way to tackle fires should be entirely preventative. At the 2017 SEMA General Meeting, Gough blamed a culture of “unrealistic expectation” as one of the causes of warehouse fires.

In other words, far too often, warehouse owners expect that the fire services will be able to put out a warehouse fire. The reality is that this is extremely unlikely. The fire services can put out house fires and they can rescue people from buildings. However, they should be seen as a last resort and the idea that they will be able to put out a warehouse fire once it’s started is — what Gough calls — an “unrealistic expectation”.

Defective work equipment is the main cause of warehouse fires in England and Wales, with 28% of them being caused that way. A further 11% of warehouse fires are caused by misuse of equipment.

Both of those dangers can be alleviated by racking safety and by following SEMA safety guidelines. When businesses perform the regular racking inspections which both the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations (PUWER) 1998 and HSE recommend, they are making sure that their work equipment is neither faulty or misused. In doing so, they doing their bit to lessen the two dangers which make up nearly half of all warehouse fires.

Racking Systems Force People to Take Responsibility

Another issue Gough highlights is the unwillingness for people to take responsibility after a fire has occurred. After the Magna Park warehouse fire in 2005, Gough recalls a distinct lack of accountability for the fire.

The building was owned, operated, and managed by several different businesses, each with their own interests. Each group blamed the other, and to Gough this begged the question: “Who’s in charge here?” His opinion is that, when people fail to take responsibility, “that’s when accidents happen.”

Racking safety forces people to take responsibility. HSE’s guidance states that each workplace needs to nominate a “person responsible for racking safety (PRRS)” and — like all other warehouse staff — this person should be “competent”. What’s more, according to the CDM regulations 2015, it’s the responsibility of the employer to ensure that warehouse staff are “competent”.

When properly followed, racking safety and warehouse safety in general, gives clear guidance as to who is responsible for what. This responsibility is what prevents accidents. When someone knows that they will ultimately be the person to blame if something goes wrong, they are much more likely to do everything they can to make sure that nothing does go wrong.

Racking Safety Can Prevent Fires, But Sprinklers Stop Them

If there was one thing Gough stressed more than anything else in his talk, it was this: every single warehouse in the UK should be fitted with sufficient sprinklers.

Should the worst happen and a fire starts in a warehouse, sprinklers are there to stop them. Up to 99% of all fires in sprinkler-protected warehouses are prevented by the sprinkler systems. That success rate should be enough for sprinklers to be mandatory, but this is not the case.

Gough expressed his frustration that one of the key reasons people don’t install sprinklers is that they are worried about water damage. He argues that too many people imagine that if someone sets off a match and a tiny bit of smoke gets into the air, the whole system will go off.

While this is something often depicted in cinema — from films as wide-ranging as Die Hard to The Incredibles — it’s simply not true. The truth is that sprinkler systems only ever go off in a room where there’s a fire and they use a lot less water to put out a fire than the fire service would.

When sprinkler systems are combined with proper racking safety, warehouse fires can be prevented and — if necessary — stopped in their tracks.

For a FREE, no-obligation consultation on our range of racking safety services, contact Storage Equipment Experts today.

How to Spot a Bad Racking Inspection Course?

Bad Racking Inspection Course

Bad Inspection courses vary a lot in quality across the UK and Ireland, so how you can you spot a bad one?

A bad racking inspection course can be worse than useless. Not only will it not teach you good practice for racking inspection safety; it runs the risk of teaching the wrong way to inspect a racking system. In some cases, doing something wrong is more dangerous than not doing it at all.

To make sure that your racking inspections are the rigorous safety checks they should be, you need the right kind of training. In order to get that, here’s a quick guide on how to spot a bad racking inspection courses.

A Bad Racking Inspection Course Makes False Promises

SEMA delivers a course designed for people who want to pursue a career in racking inspections. The people who attend this course usually have some kind of background in engineering or safety and have every intention of starting their own racking inspection business.

The people who pass the pre-course qualifier, attend this intensive course, and attend all of the necessary follow up training are SEMA approved racking inspectors. Attending any other racking inspection courses will not make them a SEMA approved racking inspector. Courses which accidentally — or purposefully — suggest otherwise are wrong.

This is relevant because HSE recommends inspections from outside “experts”, such as SEMA approved racking inspectors, at least once a year. Attending a racking inspection courses will not qualify you as an “expert”; only SEMA approved racking inspectors qualify as experts.

What a racking inspection courses allow you to do is perform the regular staff-led inspections which HSE also recommends.

A Bad Racking Inspection Course Is Not Thorough

Learning how to properly inspect a racking system isn’t like learning how to solve a Rubik’s Cube. While the latter can be learnt by watching a 20-minute video, the former is a lot more complicated and it should be treated as such.

The racking inspection course we offer at Storage Equipment Experts is a full-day course. We pack as much information as we can into the day, but we don’t rush through anything either. We make certain that each person attending the course gets as much out of it as possible.

A Bad Racking Inspection Course Will Be Delivered By Someone Unqualified

Anyone can offer a racking inspection course, but that doesn’t mean you can or should trust just anyone. In order to guarantee that you will adopt good practice with your racking inspections. You need a racking inspection course delivered by a SEMA approved racking inspector. This is exactly the kind, of course, we offer at Storage Equipment Experts.

A Bad Racking Inspection Course Is Inflexible

There are SEMA approved racking inspectors all over the UK and Ireland. In fact, there are SEMA approved racking inspectors all over the world. All of this is well and good, but a racking inspection course being delivered in Shanghai isn’t much help if your business is based in Redditch.

London is an extremely accessible city for people across the UK, Ireland, and even most of Europe. This is why attending the racking inspection courses at our training centre is so easy. However, even travelling to a city as accessible as London isn’t an option for everyone. The new generation of business owners is more strapped for time than ever. It’s for this reason that we also offer to travel to your workplace to deliver our racking inspection course.

As well as making the courses easier for your staff to attend, another benefit is that we able to show you exactly how a racking inspection should be performed in your workplace. What’s more, we are happy to travel to any business in the UK or Ireland to deliver this service.

If you’re considering booking a racking inspection courses for you or your staff, contact Storage Equipment Experts today for a FREE consultation. With testimonials from Tate Modern, Smiffys, and Dunlop. We are proud to offer the best racking inspection services in the UK.

Will Racking Inspection Legislation Change in 2018?

Racking Inspection Legislation

2018 will likely bring many changes to the UK, so racking inspection legislation may have to change with it.

Racking inspection legislation has gone through many changes since the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 was passed. What started off as a very vague — but very important — workplace safety law became HSE. Today, HSE helps to create legislation and guidance for many specific workplace safety issues. Racking inspection legislation is just one such example of this.

What Is Racking Inspection Legislation?

Racking inspection legislation is a tough thing to define. The most cohesive guide on the topic of how and how often businesses should inspect their racking systems in the UK comes from HSE’s HSG76. The second edition of this guide was published in 2007 and it hasn’t been updated since.

However, HSE’s HSG76 is not legislation in of itself. Rather, it is good practice guidance from HSE. As such, the guide opens with the following caveat:

This guidance is issued by the Health and Safety Executive. Following the guidance is not compulsory and you are free to take other action. But if you do follow the guidance you will normally be doing enough to comply with the law.

In short, while HSG76 may not have changed since 2007, that doesn’t mean that racking inspection legislation hasn’t changed or couldn’t change.

Examples of Racking Inspection Legislation

There are no British laws which were explicitly written to refer to racking inspection, but there are laws which affect racking inspections. In this sense, many pieces of racking inspection legislation have been introduced and have changed over the years.

One of the most important of these is the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations (PUWER) 1998. In January this year, a business in Northampton was fined £330,000 and had to pay damages of over £11,000 after it pleaded guilty to breaching the fifth regulation of PUWER 1998.

This regulation emphasises an employer’s responsibility to make sure that work equipment is inspected after installation and at regular intervals. It’s exactly because of this regulation that businesses are legally required to inspect their racking systems in the same way, as racking systems count as work equipment.

So, Could Racking Inspection Legislation Change in 2018?

It’s possible. What’s more, it’s completely possible for the law to change and for HSE HS76 to stay the same. This is exactly what happened when the CDM Regulations were updated in 2015.

Coming into force just three years ago, these regulations have completely changed the onus of responsibility when it comes to racking inspections. Past CDM Regulations emphasised the importance of competence for employees working in a construction environment.

The issue was that competence — as well as what counted as construction work — was ill-defined by the previous regulations. In 2015, this all changed with the new CDM Regulations, which greatly expanded the legal definition of construction to include warehouses, television studios, and film sets to name a few examples.

What’s more, it is now the legal responsibility of employers to ensure that their employees are competent. It’s also now their legal responsibility to provide a convincing argument for the competence of their employers.

This change in responsibility had the effect of freeing up time and money for HSE, as well as making HSE’s HSG76 more important than ever. Even if the guide itself didn’t change, the fact that it is now an employer’s responsibility to define competence for themselves has led many to fall back on HSE’s advice in this guide.

It’s in this guide that HSE recommends annual racking inspections from SEMA approved racking inspectors (who they label as “experts”). They also recommend regular staff-led racking inspections.

At Storage Equipment Experts, we provide racking inspections from SEMA approved inspectors. We also provide racking inspection training from a SEMA approved racking inspector, so that your staff are competent enough to perform the regular staff-led inspections HSE recommends.

 Contact Storage Equipment Experts today for a FREE consultation on racking inspections from SEMA approved inspectors.

Can Rack Inspection Training Help You With Best Practice?

Rack Inspection Training

Rack inspection training should act as a template on which businesses base their actions

When you want to teach your employees how to perform staff-led racking inspections, the best way to do this is to make them attend rack inspection training. Doing so will give them the confidence and the expertise to perform rack inspections themselves. The reason for this is that — arguably — rack inspection training is an example of best practice. Still, what does that mean?

What Is Rack Inspection Best Practice?

The Amazon warehouse has 45,000 robots in it and the company is looking to introduce even more in the coming years. To Amazon, there is a right way and a wrong way to operate within a warehouse. It believes that — should a robot be able to learn the right way of doing things and execute its tasks accordingly — this robot can work for Amazon.

Behind all this is the idea of “best practice”. Like a “zero accident” workplace, best practice is best understood as a way of thinking, rather than a goal which can be achieved. A workplace where one way of doing things is the right way of doing them on every occasion; that’s best practice.

In reality, of course, it doesn’t always work like that. This is why HSE’s HSG76 places emphasis on the fact that their guide to warehouse safety doles out “good practice” advice, but that other courses of action might be taken in other instances.

While it’s good to have some leeway, the benefit of rack inspection training is that it can give you some guidance as to what best practice is. Of course, as with HSE’s guidance, it’s also perfectly fine to view it as “good practice” instead.

Why Should Businesses Follow the Guidance Given in Rack Inspection Training?

In recent years, we have been plagued by a lack of belief in experts and what experts have to say about issues. With so much information out there, people want to believe that they can figure out difficult issues for themselves.

Safety is one of many sectors where this is a problem. When health and safety myths make their way into the public consciousness because of a newspaper headline or some internet rumour, it can be hard to stamp these false ideas out. It’s because of issues like this that health and safety experts are so important.

The people who deliver rack inspection training at Storage Equipment Experts are — well — experts. This is the label which HSE’s HSG76 gives to SEMA approved racking inspectors (SARIs) and our rack inspection training course is delivered by a SEMA approved racking inspector (SARI).

To become a SARI, a person needs to pass a pre-course qualifier, attend a three-day intensive SEMA approved racking inspector course, pass the end of course assessment, and continue to top up their knowledge by attending seminars and additional courses. The failure rate for the SARI course is high, which is why there are only 107 SARIs in the world.

It is because of SEMA’s high standards and the high failure rate of the SARI course that the people who are SARIs are labelled as experts. As such, the guidance they give in rack inspection training courses should be trusted.

Rack inspection training may not be best practice advice, but it’s certainly good practice advice which goes hand in hand with the advice from HSE’s HSG76 as well the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 and the CDM Regulations 2015.

To receive rack inspection training from an expert, contact Storage Equipment Experts for a FREE, no-obligation consultation on our range of racking inspection services.

Download Your FREE Pallet Racking Inspection Form Before Winter

Pallet Racking Inspection Form

Winter can be tough on racking systems, so be sure to download a FREE pallet racking inspection form before it comes.


With winter fast approaching, there’s never been a better time to download a pallet racking inspection form and institute a proper inspection system in your warehouse. This is because, for many people in the warehousing and storage industry, winter isn’t just the coldest time of the year. The slow approach of Christmas (an event which some businesses start planning for in the summer) means that it can also be the busiest.

Christmas brings with it a tide of orders for products of all kinds. It’s a huge boon for businesses of all kinds across the country and it can really help to boost the economy. There’s a lot more to Christmas, of course, but the extra sales are what make businesses merry during this time of year.

The problem for warehouses is that all of this extra business couldn’t come at a worse time. Cold can bring illnesses, slippery floors, ice and a whole bunch of other winter-related injuries to your warehouse.

With so much going on during the winter period, it’s important to get a handle on things now. While your warehouse is still relatively quiet and warm, download our FREE pallet racking inspection form.

Why Do I Need a Pallet Racking Inspection Form?

HSE recommends annual racking inspections from a SEMA approved racking inspector (SARI). This is an important racking inspection service, but it’s not the whole story. In order to maintain the safety of your racking system in between visits from a SARI, HSE also recommends regular racking inspections from staff.

HSE recommends that the person performing this task is competent. Moreover, according to the CDM regulations, anyone working in your warehouse should be competent. In order to achieve this, we offer racking inspection training, but we also offer a checklist which staff can use once they’ve completed the training in order to perform regular racking inspections.

How Do Pallet Racking Inspection Forms Work?

Ours is pretty simple. We outline all of the different parts of a racking system: uprights, frame bracing, base plate, beam connectors, etc. Alongside each part is the option to mark it as green, amber, or red. The green, amber, red system is one recommended by HSE.

Green means the system is fine. Amber means that there is damage, so the system needs to be offloaded immediately and it needs to be repaired as soon as possible within four weeks. Red means that there is damage so that the system needs to be offloaded immediately and it needs to be repaired immediately.

Why Download Our Pallet Racking Inspection Form?

Aside from the fact that you should download our pallet racking inspection form because it’s FREE, our pallet racking inspection is also one of the only ones written by a SEMA approved pallet racking inspector who is also a SEMA approved cantilever racking inspector.

Our SARI’s wide range of racking system knowledge is why the racking inspection form which you can download from SEE is of a higher quality than other racking inspection forms. However, don’t just take our word for it. Download it for FREE and see for yourself how our pallet racking inspection form will improve your warehouse’s safety in time for the cold and busy winter period.

As well as a FREE pallet racking inspection form, we also offer FREE consultations. So, for racking inspection training, pallet racking inspections and other racking inspection services, contact Storage Equipment Experts today.

3 Dangers A Warehouse Racking Safety Checklist Can Prevent

top 3 warehouse racking safety checklist

An unkempt warehouse is abundant with dangers, but a warehouse racking safety checklist can dramatically reduce those dangers

Warehouses aren’t inherently dangerous, but a warehouse filled with untrained staff who have no system for inspecting racking systems can be a dangerous thing. This is what makes warehouse racking safety checklists so important. A fuller appreciation of that importance can be gained by better understanding the specific dangers they can prevent.

1. Warehouse Racking Safety Checklists Prevent Distractions

Distractions are everywhere at work. Your home life, other members of staff, the things you need to do when work finishes: it’s perfectly natural to be juggling thoughts about all of these things while you’re working. The issue is when these thoughts interfere with something which requires your full attention — and a warehouse racking safety inspection requires your full attention.

Having a warehouse racking safety checklist means that you know exactly what you are doing when you doing it; it allows you to be in the moment.

2. Warehouse Racking Safety Checklists Create Routine

It was Oscar Wilde who said “consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative”. However, when it comes to business, consistency is a wildly underappreciated thing. Breaking new ground and expanding into new areas is great. With regards to safety, though, it’s a lot better to keep things consistent.

When HSE gives its advice on staff-led racking inspections, it doesn’t say “once a week” or “once a month”. Instead, its emphasis is on “regular” racking inspections. There’s good reason for this. Safety is a process which should always be happening. It’s not something you should be “topping up” on if a couple of accidents have happened earlier that week.

A routine for safety ensures that the important work of safety gets done. It means you can resist the temptation to ignore it just because an accident hasn’t happened in a while. You remind yourself that perhaps the reason an accident hasn’t happened is directly due to the routine.

As mentioned above, when inspections are done infrequently, they run the risk of not being done at all. Yet, they also run the risk of being unreliable due to a lack of practice and context.

With regards to practice, quality racking inspections require training — just like anything else. If your staff are to use our warehouse racking inspection checklist, we would only recommend doing so after racking inspection training from a SEMA approved racking inspector. Even then, though, performing racking inspections infrequently means that the knowledge from this training fades away, as it is the regular application of learned knowledge that helps to cement it. With regards to context, your staff can’t know whether a system is acting normally unless they know what normal looks like.

In short, a warehouse without routine is chaotic. Warehouse racking safety checklists prevent that.

3. Warehouse Racking Safety Checklists Stop Laziness

Following on from the last point, lazy staff are rarely intrinsically lazy. More often than not, they are taught to be lazy by a working environment where tasks are not made clear and routine is not expected.

With regards to staff-led racking inspections, performing them with a warehouse racking safety checklist makes the process hard to quantify. A staff member might decide, from a distance, that they have “pretty much” inspected everything because they don’t have anywhere to jot down their observations or what they’ve inspected.

While that extreme case imagines a particularly lazy staff member, it isn’t a stretch to imagine an otherwise reliable staff member missing one or two things because they don’t need to write anything down or refer to anything.

This is a kind of laziness, too, but it’s one which can be easily prevented by giving your staff a checklist to note down what they have and haven’t inspected. A well-made checklist is made specific recommendations for specific parts of a racking system. Asking a staff member to use one while performing their inspection will encourage them to be specific and accurate, too.

To help prevent dangers in your warehouse, download our FREE warehouse racking safety checklist

Contact us for a FREE consultation on our full range of racking inspection services.