Client: Visy
Location: Truganina, Melbourne, Australia
It all started with an idea to replace heavy wooden crates used for transporting apples with lighter, sturdier cardboard boxes. Nearly 80 years later, family-owned business Visy has grown into Australia’s largest processor of kerbside recycling and a global leader in sustainable packaging solutions.
With 150 sites across Australia and New Zealand, the team at Visy use recycled content to support Australasia’s thriving food and beverage packaging industry. To successfully operate a network of sites of this scale, safety and efficiency are paramount across the board.
In a fast-paced operational environment, ensuring that pedestrians, forklifts, and other materials handling equipment (MHE) can operate in the same spaces is crucial. With lots of moving parts comes an increased risk of collision between any of the aforementioned, or with expensive structures and machinery.
When Visy introduced a new cardboard manufacturing facility in Truganina, Melbourne, they needed a partner that could provide them with the right safety controls to protect their people and assets. We worked closely with Visy National Engineering Manager Ben Westaway to identify the risk areas on-site and understand what Visy wanted to achieve. That way, we were able to recommend the best safety solutions for their particular site.
Client Challenges
After reviewing the manufacturing facility’s Traffic Management Plan (TMP), together, we identified the following challenges:
- No designated walkway to guide staff and visitors around the site and out of the path of forklifts and automated material handling equipment (MHE).
- Staff needed to be separated from hazardous areas and risk-prone zones.
- Safety controls required colour customisation to match the site aesthetic.
Solutions Offered
We discussed these challenges with Visy, ensuring we were on the same page with the plan, and our recommendations were implemented accordingly.
Getting Staff from A to B
As with all operational facilities, staff and visitors require a designated walking route from the office, changing rooms, or staff area to their workstation. Without clearly marked or physically separated walkways, pedestrians can enter forklift zones, creating confusion and a high risk of injury and fatalities.
As a result, Visy established a walkway around the building’s internal perimeter and installed our PedSafe Handrail Barriers, a modular double-rail system designed to guide foot traffic and clearly define pedestrian routes within the workplace.
Sectioning off Hazardous Areas
These pedestrian walkways flowed into more PedSafe Handrail barriers to keep people within the dedicated lanes and prevent them from walking into the line of automated MHE on tracks in operational zones.
To encourage staff to stop, pause, take in their surroundings and assess the level of risk before walking into a shared or hazardous space, Visy installed PedSafe Pause Gates at the entrances and exits to key points along pedestrian walkways.
Customisable Safety Solutions
With a site layout featuring many grey structural beams, Visy requested that their PedSafe handrails and pause gates be powder-coated grey to match the space’s aesthetic. Visy recognised that the modular handrail system’s rounded corners also added to the design’s appeal.
The Outcome
Too often, when there is no physical barrier in place to guide people in the right direction and alert them to potential risks, accidents happen.
By pairing the PedSafe barriers and gates, Visy created a clearly defined walkway system throughout their site that separated pedestrians and forklifts, significantly reducing the likelihood of collisions that could cause serious harm.
These safety controls will prevent people from walking into the forklift and automated MHE lines or from getting too close to hazardous zones.
Plus, they achieved their aesthetic goals for the space by having these systems powder-coated grey to match the site’s existing features.
Need help identifying the risks on your site and matching them to the right safety controls? Get in touch with our team to start the conversation—we’re here to help.
