Trapped key interlocks protect warehouse workers

Trapped key interlocks will keep employees safe from automatic stacker cranes in aisles and restrict, and keep safe, access to the crane aisles, and control of the cranes.

Mistura Systems has supplied trapped key interlocks to keep employees safe in all of the most recent automatic warehouses built by Savoye Logistics of Loughborough.

The high bay warehouses feature automatic stacker cranes in aisles and the interlocks restrict, and keep safe, access to the crane aisles, and control of the cranes.

Trapped key interlock systems from Mistura are a simple method of making machinery and most industrial processes safe.

In the warehouses, workers can only achieve access to an aisle by first turning off the crane.

The key to operate the crane is trapped while the key to the aisle is in use.

The crane can only be used via local control, and can only be returned to fully automatic when the access door is closed and locked again.

Each aisle also features a Mistura Systems MLQ Emergency Release crash bar in the unlikely event of someone remaining trapped inside.

Located at the exit to the protected area, it utilises a conventional crash bar door lock which, when hit, instantly overrides the interlock mechanism, opening the door.

Savoye Logistics is one of Europe's leading designers and suppliers of automated logistics systems, and provides complete solutions involving storage, handling and management software.

Many of its most recent projects have been for pharmaceutical companies to Good Automated Manufacturing Practice (GAMP) standards, and Mistura interlocks have been used for warehouses in England, Ireland and even Saudi Arabia.

(This was Manufacturingtalk's Top Story on 12 December 2002).

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