Rigging gear hire firms have been hit by a scare when a Lloyds Register document that raised safety questions about flat webbing slings was circulated around the industry. The document has been since found to be misleading.
The alert ‘caused considerable confusion and panic, shall we say’ said Trevor Gregg, specialist inspector with the UK’s regulatory body the Health and Safety Executive in Aberdeen, Scotland.
‘People were worried that there was a fault with all flat woven web slings. The problems were limited to two manufacturers and of those, with one manufacturer it was a particular batch of slings. Both manufacturers could identify where the slings have gone to, and took appropriate action.’ Gregg said both manufacturers have contacted the relevant customers.
‘We had numerous phone calls from customers asking, “What’s happening here? Why are these slings made like this?” We had to tell them that the problems with the construction of the sling as Lloyds had interpreted was incorrect. They found that hard to accept,’ said Paul Auston, managing director of UK sling manufacturer Checkmate Avon. Auston added that the company had not lost any business because of the scare.
In early May, Lifting Gear Hire managing director Simon Butterworth sent a letter to Lloyds Register complaining about the alert and its adverse affect on business. In the letter, the company said it was suffering ‘a loss of revenue through customers ending the hire of flat slings with a short tail overlap,’ plus indirect effects on the business because of loss of confidence and extra load on customer service due to enquiries about the slings, the letter said.
At least one other UK rigging firm has had ‘serious problems’ because of the safety alert, Derrick Bailes, chief executive of the Lifting Equipment Engineers Association, told Hoist.
Derrick Bailes issued a statement about the alert in February. ‘Unfortunately the alert contained some misleading information which, however well intentioned, has given rise to considerable concern amongst users whilst also failing to address the real issues exposed by these failures,’ it said.
The LEEA letter said that flat woven webbing slings made in compliance with the UK and European sling standard, BS EN 1492:1-2000, were perfectly safe.
Lloyds Register in Aberdeen, Scotland issued a safety alert dated 8 February stating that it had found that two-layer reinforced eye (duplex) slings from two manufacturers were fabricated incorrectly. It said they had been tested to destruction and found to have had breaking loads below the minimum 7:1 safety ratio specified by the standard. The first manufacturer’s 6t capacity sling broke at 20.3t and its 5t sling broke at 19.4t; the second manufacturer’s 5t capacity sling broke at 23.2t.
The safety alert linked the failures to the slings’ construction: ‘A duplex sling has a “short tail” and a “long tail.” The correct fabrication method is to have the short tail captured between the long tail and what would be the single layer of a simplex sling.’ It further advised users to ‘check the fabrication method and if the incorrect manufacturing technique is found, return it immediately to the supplier.’
In the LEEA letter, Derrick Bailes refuted these statements. ‘The safety alert was incorrect in suggesting that the position of the short tail contributed to the failures,’ he said. ‘The standard does not require the short tail of a sling to be located in a particular position relative to the eyes.’
When contacted this month, the Lloyds Register department that issued the safety alert read a statement from the company’s legal department. The statement said: ‘We have been told by the HSE that the two manufacturers being investigated by the HSE for producing non-compliant flat webbing slings have now identified the suspect batches of slings, contacted their customers and made arrangements to replace any suspect slings. Therefore Lloyds Register EMEA is not currently making any recommendation in relation to these slings.’
The safety inspector, Trevor Gregg, explained what happened. ‘What you have got to bear in mind is that there was no failure in service, there was no incident.’ The affair began when a sling customer was unhappy with the look of the slings after a visual inspection. This company contacted Lloyds Register in Aberdeen. Lloyds witnessed sling samples tested to destruction by a testing house. Slings were obtained from the first manufacturer, and when they failed to meet the 7:1 safety factor, from the second manufacturer. Following the tests, Lloyds contacted the HSE. Then the HSE launched its own investigation.
The problematic slings from the first manufacturer all came from a single batch, Gregg said. The manufacturer’s quality control systems did not pick up that there was insufficient stitching in the sling joint, Gregg said. Initially, a group of eight slings started the investigation, and since then four or five have been returned to the manufacturer that appear not to meet the specification, Gregg said.
The managing director of the first sling manufacturer, who did not wish to be named, disputed the results of the tests, though he did admit there were some problems with stitching. He also complained of loss of business resulting from the product alert and said that the matter was with his solicitors.
He told Hoist: ‘All we are trying to do is get back to normal. The HSE has said we can carry on manufacturing, so all we are trying to do is get our heads down and get back to work.’
The second manufacturer’s manufacturing troubles were unrelated, but potentially more widespread, Gregg said. Between 700-1000 slings are affected by the problems of the second manufacturer’s process, Gregg said, though he stressed that the problem only reduces the safety factor to a ratio above 5:1. Gregg added that many users’ policy of cutting up slings after six months, whether or not they had been used, would help to limit the problem. Gregg said the manufacturer reported that many of the slings have gone outside the UK.
The second manufacturer’s problems lay in its quality-management process, Gregg said. Slings are routinely tested to make sure they meet the standard. The second manufacturer type-tested unfinished slings, Gregg said. When tested, the sling had a soft eye six inches (152 mm) wide. Prior to being sold, this eye was folded over on itself so it could fit on hooks or shackles without distorting. But folding the eye increases the stress in the eye and can put stress on the stitched joint, depending on the position of the joint in the sling, Gregg said, so the sling needs to be de-rated when the eye is folded. The manufacturer incorrectly assumed that the samples it was testing were as strong as the slings that were sold, he said.
The LEEA statement said: ‘The real cause of the failure was that the verification procedures of the standard had not been properly complied with. The definition of a representative sample clearly states that it may differ from the production sling in length only.’
Both sling manufacturers were ISO 9002 accredited, Gregg said. Neither was a member of the LEEA, Bailes said.
Gregg said that following the investigation he had contacted six other UK sling manufacturers to check that they did not test flat webbing slings before folding over the eyes. (None did). ‘I don’t have any evidence of other manufacturers doing that,’ Gregg said. ‘But that doesn’t mean to say there aren’t others. It would be useful for users of flat webbing slings to contact their supplier and verify that their type-testing of completed slings includes folded eyes.’
