Spillard Safety Systems is stepping up its campaign to hammer home the message that more needs to be done to increase safety on mining and quarrying sites. As part of a newly expanded education and training programme, the company will be taking part in a series of safety events this autumn including a Mineral Products Association (MPA) safety day, and a safety week organised by Tarmac.
One of the events where Spillard will be raising these issues and advancing some practical answers will be the MPA Midlands health and safety day, taking place at Bradgate House in Leicester on 18 October. Hosted by Midland Quarry Products and Hanson Aggregates, it aims to provide essential training to quarry operatives on many areas of health and safety.
Spillard will also be taking part in the Tarmac Northern and Scotland areas safety week, taking place between 17th and 21st September 2012 at Tarmac Barrasford Quarry. The focus of this event will include behavioural safety, workshop safety and housekeeping, and working at height. Spillard will be discussing visibility issues relating to blind spots and small vehicle segregation.
The company has been closely connected with efforts to improve site safety and visibility in particular since it first started in 1992. It has given away free more than 24,000 one metre “visibility sticks” used as a simple rule of thumb aid to measuring visibility around a machine. Over the past fifteen years, Spillard specialists have also carried out around 200 free visibility studies to map the blind spots on individual machines and vehicles. These are now available on the Spillard website and can be downloaded free.
Spillard’s latest product launch is the Optronics ASL360 – the world’s first 360 degree surround view camera system for industrial and commercial vehicles. It will be used as part of the safety discussions. Already successfully proven in the high end passenger car market on the BMW 5 series and the Land Rover, Range Rover models, this highly sophisticated system takes visibility up to the next level by giving operators a real-time bird’s eye view of their entire vehicle and its surroundings.