With their commendable awareness for health and safety, our customer Balfour Beatty Plant & Fleet Services came to us with a challenge of designing a reduced risk grabloader.

Monitoring trends of near misses and claims for injuries sustained on their existing grabloader fleet, Balfour Beatty recognised certain issues. Examples of these issues were, access and egress in particular to the load area and lifting and storage of the trench compactor on the grabloader.

Working closely with Balfour Beatty Plant & Fleet Services during the design process we were able to develop some unique additions to reduce or eliminate the risk accidents.

One area of concern to grabloader operators is the crane platform access. Conventional swing down ladders aren’t designed for use with heavy duty work boots and require a large amount of space to allow them to swung down.

Manufactured using our in-house CNC laser cutting and folding facility. Our fold away ladder has been designed to fold down in restricted spaces. The ladder has sufficient spacing for heavy duty work boots and each rung has an anti slip tread plate to give grip.

The unique feature of this ladder is its angled position when folded down. This aides the driver when climbing up and down. Another feature is its single anti-luce lock which allows the ladder to be held whilst it is locked.

A bolt on item, the ladder can be removed for access to the crane slew tube for maintenance and repairs. This is now a standard feature on all Thompsons UK crane installations.

Currently drivers would climb over the side of the body which could lead to a serious injury from a fall of approximately 2 metres.

Our solution was to access the body from the crane platform, reducing the height that the driver must climb with a constant ‘three point of contact’ design.

Laser cut steps where constructed from high yield steel allowing for easy access in and out of the tipping body. A bolt on step design allows for them to be replacement if damaged by heavy material.

High visibility grab handles and steps illuminate the ‘three point of contact’ for climbing in and out of the body . Designed ridges on the step and grooved grip on the grab handles prevents driver slips and trips.

Highlighting the steps and grab handles indicates to the driver the correct method of getting in and out the cab. It offers a daily reminder that accidents can happen and precaution is needed. It also has the added benefit of making the steps easier to see in dark.

A Pneumatic trench compactor lift was designed to wipe out the need for heavy lifting by the operator.

Our unique design lowers the compactor down and away from the body allowing the operator to simply slide out the compactor, eliminating back injuries from lifting and bending underneath the tipping body.

An automatic locking system ensures the carrier is in a lock position for travelling, together with an in-cab buzzer and warning light to let the operator know whether the lift is in a down position.

A two handed control unit also provides extra reassurance that the operator does not stand in front of lift when lowering.

As a result of these health and safety features Balfour Beatty Utility Solutions has ordered forty-four new grabloaders to give their operational teams a much improved fleet for working at height.
Steve Jackson, Head of Plant and Transport at BBUS said: "This has been an excellent partnership project to improve our HGV tipper lorry loader fleet, especially as they will now become an industry standard. Working with the BBUS Health and Safety team we identified the recurring issues on this vehicle and decided to challenge our fleet suppliers to design out the risk.

"Even though some of the improvements have been quite straightforward, they will make a major difference to the operations teams working practises and safety records. We have ordered forty-four new, tipper lorry loader's giving our operational teams a much improved fleet for working at height."