Keeping with our Chain of Responsibility series, today we are looking at some specific responsibilities for the consignment and loading phase of the chain.
See the video and transcript below.
Today we’re going to be taking a closer look at the consignment and loading phase of the chain of responsibility and taking a look at some of the specific responsibilities in that stage. My name is Michael Terry, I’m from Momentum Safety and Ergonomics and this is Five Minute Safety series.
Okay, so as I said in my intro, we’re going to be taking a closer look at the start of the journey and this is the way we’re going to divide it up now. Here we can see a full map of the different people involved in different parts of a loads journey, under the chain of responsibility. Today we’re going to be taking a closer look at just the first part which is going to involve the consigner the loading manager and the packers and loaders. Okay, so the consignment is generally the person or company who sends goods via a heavy vehicle under the chain of responsibility. So, this is usually going to be a business, and if you’re watching this video and you send goods via heavy vehicles, you should be thinking this is your business. So, this might be your responsibility under the chain of responsibility.
If we look at the different people who might be more involved in that, it might be firstly the Loading Manager. This is the person who is in charge of the load itself in the loading process. Oftentimes they might be someone like a dock supervisor or someone like that, but they’re generally will be an individual person. And then of course you have the individuals who were involved in the packing or palletising, or whatever it might be you’re sending product into its designated packages. And of course, the loader, who puts it on the truck, and probably is involved in, or someone else also might be involved, in the securing of the load that sort of thing. So, these are the different people involved and who will have responsibilities in this phase of the chain.
Okay, so the way I’ve decided to, try and divide this up is I’ve created this table here, which has a look at three different elements or risks, under the chain of responsibility. Firstly, we look at mass and dimension limits, and of course, we all know that they should not be exceeded but we’ll be having a look at where these parties might have responsibilities in here. We look at the load safety, and I’ll be looking at where it’s packed and how securely it’s secured and those sorts of things. And, of course, critical in the chain of responsibility is speeding and fatigue and making sure that these are not exceeded. Now whether the consigner and the loaders have direct influence here, probably not – they probably don’t, but they may have some influence and we’ll just look at where that might be, and what they can do to avoid adversely influence influencing this process.
So firstly jumping on into the consignors and we’ll have a look at their involvement in mass and dimension limits. And of course, I think when you’re talking about the business itself, the business itself can’t individually be there doing stuff. So, the business is really responsible, from my point of view, to make sure they have appropriate systems in place, and those systems are going to make sure, or ensure that it’s likely that these limits are not exceeded by the nature of the load. If we consider load safety and again looking at it from the consigner’s point of view, same deal. I think it’s really important that we have the systems in place here to make sure that the load is secured, appropriate checklists, but also appropriate training and competency of the loaders and loading manager to make sure that they are able to do their job safely.
And finally, if we have a look at speeding and fatigue. As I said, no direct influence here, but we need to make sure that we’re not adversely or even unknowingly encouraging the exceeding of fatigue, and speed limits. So how might that happen? That could be through things such as not providing rest facilities, so drivers don’t get the opportunity to rest. Maybe just having some sort of system in place to check for fatigue, but probably mostly for me making sure that we have efficient loading processes so that drivers are not adversely delayed in that process, and feel the need to make up time for skipping breaks or driving too fast.
Okay, moving on to the loading managers and now we’re talking about an individual person who has responsibility here. And if we’re talking about load and mass dimensions, they’re probably not doing the loading, but they do need to make sure that it’s done right. Again making sure that they are applying the systems that had been passed on through the company, the consigner. And that’s going to be again monitoring the process, and ensuring that loaders and packers are aware of the load requirements, and any changes that might have happened along the way. When it comes to load safety, we need to make sure that they again are applying the systems, making sure that the drivers are able to do the jobs or the loaders are able to do their job. And the Packers. And again, probably some sort of monitoring and check process to make sure everything’s in place before everything is sent out. When it comes to fatigue and speeding risks, again, making sure that the process is happening as smoothly as possible from the ground point of view, but also trying to avoid inefficient delays, providing reasonable loading time slots, and also the management of congestion will be important here.
Okay, let’s have a look at the loaders and package them have a look at those together because they don’t do the same role but the responsibilities are similar, within the roles that they do. So, when it comes to mass in dimensions, obviously we need to make sure from a packing point of view that the load is packed securely safely, and within the weight prescriptions that we’ve already worked out, and those are appropriately labelled. The loader needs to make sure it gets loaded appropriately on the truck, and whoever is responsible for the security needs to make sure that that’s happening as well. Lastly, when it comes to fatigue and speeding, again similar, we just need to make sure that these people, packers and loaders, are not slowing down the process, adversely and causing unfair and difficult to manage delays for the drivers. So, there you go guys that’s a quick summary of the chain of responsibility, the first part of the process. We’ll be moving through the other parts in videos to come but that gives us a good feel for at the starting point now. Thanks for listening and have a great day.