Meeting health & safety working at height regulations
Client: Omya UK
Industry: Minerals and Chemicals
Site: Aggregates plant in Derbyshire
Overview
Safe tanker access gantry was required by Omya UK to adhere to health and safety working at height regulations. Omya UK is a leading supplier of white minerals and chemicals – both in the UK and around the world as part of Omya AG, a multi-national based in Switzerland. Omya AG is a world leader in the manufacture of fillers and pigments derived from calcium carbonate.
Omya runs a fleet of tankers for transporting their products and wanted to provide a safe, easy single-point access gantry to allow their operators to open and close their tanker hatches. They also wanted to control access to the gantry for safety reasons.
IFC’s Solution
IFC proposed a four-metre high safe tanker access gantry with a six-metre long platform. The solution would provide a full road tanker enclosure, ensuring the safety cage fully encloses the tanker loading and working area. This was fitted with two sets of IFC Flow-step folding stairs with 4.5m long x 1.4m wide Total Tanker Safety Cages.
The gantry was custom made to match Omya’s own tanker sizes. It is specially designed to have a small footprint to fit into the required space. The Flow-step folding stairs were compression spring balanced for ease of use. The fall prevention cages were designed to allow access to the maximum number of manway covers from a single point.
The tanker access gantry and stairs were also fitted with an access gate and a series of key interlocks to ensure safety, security, and to prevent accidental drive off. We were also tasked with the installation and commissioning of the system.
Project Outcome
The system was designed and fabricated to Omya’s specific requirements. It was successfully installed in a single day, with commissioning taking place the following morning.
The site now has a purpose-built tanker access point providing safe access and fall prevention for all tanker top operations making it safer and easier to carry out day to day works.
