Dairy Crest, the UK’s leading chilled dairy foods company, is protecting loading bay personnel at two sites with Castell’s interlocking driveaway safeguard system, Salvo.
“Without a shadow of a doubt, it’s the best system we’ve found,” commented Martin O’Brien, health & safety manager at Dairy Crest’s Fenstanton dairy. Martin became aware of Salvo thanks to Sarah Mellor at the company’s Crudgington facility, where the safety system has been in operation for two years. Having spoken to the staff at Crudgington and seen Salvo in action, Martin decided that the system was also the right choice for Fenstanton.
The decision was influenced by Fenstanton’s chief shunter, Alan Crouch, who, while impressed by Salvo’s simplicity and ease-of-use, was particularly taken with the product’s ability to put control of the loading procedure in the hands of shunters. As Martin explains: “The shunters have been the driving force behind the adoption of this technology, and they’re the ones who are most pleased with it.”
Fenstanton handles an average of 100 vehicle movements a day on its 10 loading bays. Shunters reverse trailers up to the relevant bay, remove the Salvo Susie lock from its storage box and fit it to the trailer’s exposed emergency airline coupling. This action immobilises the trailer and releases an individually coded key from the end of the lock, which the shunter then inserts into the Salvo Control Panel next to the bay door. Internal Salvo Beacons alert loaders that the bay door can be opened, while yard-side traffic lights switch from green to red to inform shunters that loading or unloading is taking place. Once the trailer has been loaded or unloaded, the process is reversed. The key remains trapped in the Salvo Control Panel until the door is fully closed. This ensures no loading personnel can be in the trailer when it’s removed from the bay.
Salvo has eliminated all accidents connected with the site’s loading bays since it was installed. During installation, the Castell team completed the 10 bays in five working days without any disruption to the 24-hour site operation.