A lot of things come down to luck (a coin toss, Blackjack, Snakes and Ladders) but racking safety is not one of these things. Racking safety requires skills beyond crossing your fingers, and though many people already know this, there are evidently still some who do not. As a result, there are still too many tragedies that occur from a lack of racking safety. To avoid this, businesses need to invest in racking safety with rack inspection training. So here are four reasons why racking safety does not depend on luck.
1. Racking Safety Requires Facts
Dice have no memory… but warehouses do. If a flipped coin lands heads up a thousand times in a row, the coin does not “owe us” a tails. The odds of it landing on heads again are 50/50, same as they always were. The belief otherwise is known as the Gambler’s Fallacy and it is responsible for the “one more roll of the dice” ideology that leaves so many gamblers bankrupt.
By contrast, when we say that warehouses do have memories, what we are saying is that warehouse safety is based on past mistakes and past successes. A safety system works or does not for good reason. Our rack inspection training course is not the result of guesswork. It is the result of research, hard statistics, and experience. It is the result of the collective learning accumulated from hundreds of years of warehouse and racking safety.
2. Racking Safety Requires Constant Diligence
Racking safety is not a one off. It is a constant process that requires consistent adherence to the highest standards of safety. SEMA approved racking inspectors (SARIs), for example, have to stay up to date with all of the latest racking safety news, conferences, and changes in order to keep their prestigious title. They are also expected to attend any extra courses they might need and pass on their knowledge to other people. That last point is why we at Storage Equipment Experts have written articles for British, American, and South African publications.
3. Racking Safety Requires Certainty
The very nature of luck is that it is uncertain; the very nature of safety is that it is certain. For this reason, the two concepts make terrible bedfellows. And yet, there are still many businesses who leave safety down to luck.
A far too common feeling among businesses that own warehouses is that pre racking inspection nerves are natural. They aren’t. If you are feeling nervous before a racking inspection, it is because you are uncertain about the quality of your racking safety. In other words, it means you have left it to luck. If you take chances on safety as part of the day-to-day running of your business, it should come as no surprise that an otherwise routine SEMA approved rack inspection would make you nervous.
4. Racking Safety Requires Rack Inspection Training
Our rack inspection training course leaves nothing to chance. This is a full-day course that goes through as many of the elements of racking inspection that can be covered in the time allowed. The end result is that those who attend our course walk away feeling confident about racking safety. Not the kind of confidence that relies on a misplaced self-belief and philosophy of luck. Rather, the confidence gained from our course comes from the acquisition of solid knowledge: practical, relevant, and succinct.
More than that, our course teaches humility. We do not pretend to cover every element of racking inspection in a single day. There are limits to the amount of knowledge we can impart, which is why HSE recommend a visit from a SEMA approved rack inspector at least once a year. Our course teaches employees everything that they need to know about racking safety. More than that, it teaches them that what they don’t know doesn’t need to be left to chance. Instead, what they don’t know should be left to a rack inspection from a SEMA approved rack inspector.
In the world of rack safety, there is no such thing as luck. So make sure that your staff have rack inspection training from Storage Equipment Experts and leave luck to the cowboys!
