The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 is considered to be a landmark in law. It was introduced to the House of Commons by the then Home Secretary, John Reid, on 20th July 2006, received royal assent on the 26th July 2007 and came into force on the 6th April 2008 and, for the first time, allows for companies and organisations to be found guilty of corporate manslaughter as a result of serious management failures resulting in a gross breach of a duty of care.
The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 created a new offence, which is called corporate manslaughter in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and corporate homicide in Scotland.
Before the Act came into force, a corporation could only be convicted of manslaughter if all of the elements of the offence had been committed by a single employee of the company, and even then they had to be so senior within the corporation that they would be seen as “embodying the mind” of the corporation. In practice, this meant that it was incredibly rare for a corporation to be convicted of manslaughter, and it was felt that corporations were escaping responsibility and punishment.
Following the implementation of the act, an offence is committed if the way in which an organisation’s activities are managed or organised causes a person’s death and amounts to a gross breach of a relevant duty of care owed by the organisation to the deceased.
Failure to carry out regular inspections and maintenance of your warehouse pallet racking could potentially lead to the deaths of employees and subsequently to your organisation being found guilty of corporate manslaughter. If you are a company director or responsible for the health and safety of your organisation, give yourself a good night sleep and let us take the headache of inspecting your storage system away. To find out more about our pallet racking inspections, please click here to visit our website.
Chances are that you may have never considered having a mezzanine floor installed for your business because you don’t really know what they can be used for. Here are five key ways to use a mezzanine floor to help your business.
The first is for office and storage space. Many commercial buildings have a large amount of unused space above the main floor. If the only part of the building that is being used is the main floor, then this probably means a large amount of wasted space which has potential to be used. Installing a mezzanine floor can allow you to have offices or storage, meaning you don’t have to move to new, larger premises if you need offices or storage as part of your existing warehouse. It allows your business premises to look professional and gives you somewhere to talk to and meet with clients and customers, and allows managers and supervisors to work at the heart of the business. It also allows an area for shelves, racks and other storage.
Another great use of a mezzanine floor is in retail. A mezzanine floor can be used to almost double the floor space that a store has for displaying and selling their products if they have the overhead space, thus almost doubling the amount of items that a shop can display to sell to their customers without having to move to larger premises. Mezzanine floors in retail give a modern and attractive look to your store. In retail, a mezzanine floor can also be used behind the scenes to provide office space or additional storage.
Mezzanine floors are increasingly used in production and manufacturing. They are ideal for supporting assembly and production lines, and can support machinery and racking.
They can also be ideal for supporting automation systems. They are perfect for supporting conveyor systems and machinery that transports products around the building for storing, managing and dispatching products.
Finally, a mezzanine floor in a warehouse is a great way to avoid moving to larger premises and the inevitable disruption that it causes. It can create up to double the amount of storage space in a warehouse, and is strong enough to support racking, shelving, heavy loads and all other storage equipment expected in a warehouse. The height of warehouses means that they are ideal for mezzanine floors, as above the warehouse floor is often wasted space, and some warehouses can accommodate more than one level of mezzanine floors – perhaps two or even three tiers.
To learn more about how Logical Storage could help your company with a mezzanine floor, click here or call us on 0845 689 1300 for a tailored proposal.
Racking 
Office 
Mezzanine 
Shelving 
Rack 
Warehouse 
Rack 
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn