Munro Pendulum Newsletter July 23

Welcoming a new staff member

The growth of our unique calibration lab has left us struggling to keep up with the demand of those seeking the highest possible quality of accredited calibration.   We were then pleased to welcome a new starter, Liam Williams-Brown to the Munro family this month.  His contribution will ensure we continue to offer a fast response even as we increase the capacity of the lab to handle more calibrations each week.

New Flooring Signed Off for Food Manufacturer

A previous customer in a new role contacted us this month to provide independent and impartial assessment of a resin flooring sample before it was rolled out to the wider manufacturing plant.  Resin systems are at particular risk of failing to provide safe grip levels as their anti-slip performance will typically have been certified on a small sample made up specifically for that purpose.  When the resin is laid on site it will need to exactly match the previous smaller sample if it is to exactly match its performance.  As you might imagine, this is quite the challenge, especially when considering operational aspects involved with larger scale projects and challenging environments, such as food manufacturing.  In this case we were pleased to report that the surface presented excellent anti-slip characteristics well suited to the expected slippery contaminants of oils and creams.  Both client and flooring contractor were pleased to receive a full UKAs accredited test report confirming acceptable performance in line with UKSRG and HSE recommendations at the time of installation.  This is not always the case however, and we have previously seen entire factory floors laid with a finish not representative of that specified.   Whilst the best resin providers will typically arrange independent verification of their work, it is a very good insurance policy for those purchasing anti-slip resin floors to commission their own testing to ensure they are provided with what they have paid for, and expensive issues like staff slips and/or interruption to production are avoided.

Training for Anti-slip Flooring Manufacturer

We continued our steady stream of training provision with training and certification of 4 delegates from an anti-slip flooring lab.  As is quite common, when arriving at their premises and inspecting their test equipment, there were a number of notable issues, outdated setting gauges, out of date sliders, verification surfaces of unknown and uncertified origin, and missing preparation materials.  A training session is not only a great way to ensure your staff are working to the same industry best practice, but also to ensure they have the tools to produce high quality reliable data.  The damage to reputation would no doubt be significant if an anti-slip flooring was found not to be as anti-slip as claimed.  We left this client with certified staff and a quote for all of the materials they needed to do the work properly.

Expansion of calibration offerings

Whilst our UKAS accredited calibration lab services the UK’s Pendulums and those from around Europe, we have a network of distributors and fellow labs helping to maintain the sizeable fleet of Munro Pendulums in operation around the globe.   We provided further assistance to a US-based lab this month in order to get them set up and running as (we believe) the first US based Pendulum calibration lab.  I’m pleased to report that the appetite for Pendulum testing in the US seems to be growing, which makes sense if you consider the reputation for litigation and the scrutiny that such litigation would bring to testing methodology.   In the UK, and indeed many other countries, the Pendulum remains the only meaningful and reliable way to determine not just slip resistance performance, but crucially the risk of slipping posed to a pedestrian on that surface.  We hope to be reporting the readiness of our US-partner later in the summer which should help to support the wave of those continuing to push the US testing methodology forwards.

Slip Resistance & Cleaning of Railway Platforms

We were pleased to secure a contract to determine the difference that cleaning makes to the slip resistance of a London based railway platform.  Notably, the contract was originally help by those carrying out the cleaning, before it appears the client recognised the potential pitfalls of allowing the company to ‘mark their own homework’.  Our independence and impartiality continue to provide great value to those seeking a truly scientific assessment of slip resistance.  Cleaning and slip resistance are closely intertwined, especially on anti-slip surfaces, so the project promises to present interesting and useful data to inform decisions on whether remedial works are necessary and if so what form they should take.  This contract presented further opportunity to train up our new starter in the art of slip testing and slip risk assessment to expand and reinforce our site-based testing offering.  A significant part of our UKAS accreditation is ensuring the competency of quality critical staff, so before any staff are allowed to generate data on their own they must first generate robust evidence of thorough training and produce comparative results to competent testers.  This doesn’t stop once signed off of course, all testing and calibration staff are assessed twice a year to ensure they continue to produce accurate and reliable data in line with documented best practice procedures.