T5 Baggage Manual Handling
British Airports Authority
Background
British Airports Authority's baggage handling system for Heathrow Airport's new Terminal 5 development was designed to feature traditional proven technologies using human handlers, including over 120 separate baggage handling interfaces of 22 different types.
Project
With the Health & Safety Executive calling for UK Airports to conform to EU law on manual handling risk reduction and a keen interest in maximising operational efficiency and safety, BAA contracted CCD to make ergonomics and manual handling assessments of the system design.
Implementation
We made assessments of baggage handling tasks and processes at other Heathrow terminals and UK airports to provide a basis for developing a Task Synthesis describing human interaction with the proposed T5 design and an understanding of existing health and safety issues.
To manage the scale of assessments and to enable iterative investigation of design alternatives, CCD employed the SAMMIE human modelling system. A series of human models representing the 5th to 95th percentile male and female UK population were put through the synthesised tasks for each handling interface. Assessments of reach, working space, postural stress, biomechanical demand and spinal loading were made. Where risks to handlers or operations were identified, SAMMIE was used to quickly develop alternative workplace layouts or designs which were interactively investigated and agreed with BAA engineering and their system suppliers.
Outcomes
A key finding was that the proposed 600mm height for lateral conveyors was too low and that a height of 750 to 800mm would better accommodate the widest range of handlers. This was confirmed by a fitting trial with 30 British Airways handlers simulating bag lifts from an adjustable conveyor rig. A best fit compromise height of 780mm was determined and agreed with handlers and was adopted by BAA as their standard for all airports.
The success of the work has been demonstrated by improved user acceptance, the achievement of operational performance levels and comparative reductions in operator injury and health issues since the system has been in operation.
Find out more
See more about BAA at www.baa.com and about Terminal 5 at www.terminal5.ba.com