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Shrink Wrapping Equipment and Your Safety

23 May 2018

The world of Health and Safety is constantly evolving.

As new equipment is developed, new risks mitigated. As unfortunate events happen, manufacturers must respond with heightened safety measures. For these reasons, all suppliers of machinery must maintain the highest standards of safety possible and keep their finger on the pulse for changes in legislation and best practice. 

At Yorkshire Packaging, our customer's safety is of paramount importance.

Guarding (a machine feature which shields or covers hazardous areas of a machine to prevent contact with body parts) is very important to YPS. As the leading supplier of shrink wrapping equipment to the U.K. the company has a diverse product range consisting of manual to fully automatic machines, each with their own safety considerations. The last decade has seen significant improvements in guarding, brought about through pressure from two angles; legislation and better machine design. CE marking, for example, used to be the accepted standard, but has slipped to being only the bare minimum standard. For this reason, all YPS equipment is guarded well over and above CE marking regulations.

However, guarding can still be a subjective and sometimes emotive issue and therefore, in line with their customer-centric vision, the company adopts a very straightforward policy. Following any risk assessment made by YPS customers, YPS will provide additional guarding if required, completely free of charge. This is typically only required in around 5% of installations, but all businesses have their own health and safety policies which must be adhered to, even though YPS equipment will always exceed the required standards anyway.

Glyn Johnson, YPS Managing Director, has found in his experience, that safeguarding can increase the complexity of machinery and its installation. Preventative safety features can make the operation of the machinery harder for handlers or even make the running speeds of the equipment slower. ‘It’s about striking the right balance between a user-friendly experience and assured safety’ he states.

Improvements in machine manufacture have come with the advancements of technology. Physical guards on YPS shrink wrappers have been replaced by or supplemented with light curtains which have improved the design and effectiveness greatly. Even if physical guards are deliberately bypassed, operator safety is now guaranteed by these light curtains which immediately halt the equipment if any safety concerns are detected.

YPS have also seen the important safety issue of manual lifting affect machinery design and our customer’s requirements. The machinery has been redesigned to keep in mind the strain on the operator when consumables including shrink film are loaded. For example, the low level film holder negates the need to lift heavy rolls of film overhead, this is especially important for our wide inline machines for wrapping large items. Safety features which used to be optional and cost the customer extra are increasingly becoming part of the standard machinery specification. 

If required all side feed and inline sleeve sealers can be supplied with low level top and bottom film loading systems. They can be mounted at the front or the side depending upon application and choice.

All YPS machinery is supplied with a physical and electronic safety manual and comprehensive operator training is carried out by their own experienced and knowledgeable engineers. 

Whatever your health and safety or guarding specifications are, rest assured YPS can and will meet them! Call their friendly team today on 01924 441355 for more information.

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