Information Guide
What is a Safety Station?
Safety Stations are designed for Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) vending, dispensing items such as:
- Safety Vests
- Glasses
- Earplugs
- Batteries
- First Aid (eye wash etc).
Safety machines can be sited in convenient locations throughout the workplace, providing 24/7 access to safety equipment.
Employees can access safety equipment with a card issued by their employer. Every safety machine is fitted with cashless systems card readers. To access a product the card or fob key is presented to the reader, which is located on the front panel of the PPE vending machine. When a selection is made the card reader records the safety machine number, time and date, employee name and number and a description of the product/safety equipment dispensed.
PPE vending machines are available in various sizes and models. A typical station would have 50 selections for PPE products. Each selection (depending on product size) would have 10 to 20 products available. For example:
- Vests – Approx 15 per selection
- Gloves – Approx 15 to 20 per selection
- Safety Glasses – Approx 10 per selection
- Ear Plugs – Approx 25 per selection
Setting Up a Safety Station
The customer can determine what safety equipment products are used in their workplace. As individual companies have different needs, the most commonly used items are recommended for PPE vending machines.
Once you have sent us your preferred selection of safety equipment, we can then test-vend these products and send you a proposed planogram (set-up diagram) of the safety machine. This can be altered at any time.
Most items are dispensed via a helix or spiral. The spirals are available in several diameters and pitch (eg: a 10 pitch spiral will hold 10 items). Safety machine distributors can prepare your Station with the correct spirals to ensure correct dispensing. Spirals and products can easily be changed on-site.
What Items are Suitable for PPE Vending?
The only restriction for dispensing safety equipment is physical size and weight. While products such as glasses, batteries and eye wash are ideal items for a station, heavy duty helmets and boots would be unsuitable (as these items need to be personally fitted).
If you send us samples of the PPE vending items you would like dispensed we can determine the feasibility of reliably vending this item through a station.
About Cards and Cashless Systems
The safety machines are equipped with cashless systems that use cards that are of a similar design to a standard ATM Card. All cards have an embedded individual serial number and can be printed with your company name, logo and the employee's name. The level of detail on the card face is at your discretion.
Should an employee retire or leave the company's employment, his or her personal card should be handed back. The employee's card can be returned to the store or removed from the system for future use. This is done via the web interface.
Restricting Access to PPE Vending
You can program 'in' or 'out' access to certain safety equipment products. For example, employees employed in the paint shop could be restricted from accessing welders' gloves, while employees in the welding sector maybe restricted from accessing painters' white overalls. The choice is yours.
Where to Place Your Safety Machine
Stations should be located in areas where they can be easily accessed by employees at all times, either indoors or outdoors. The machines can be relocated if and as needed. Appropriate placement ensures that the appropriate products are available at all times to guarantee OH&S compliance.
Reducing Wastage and Shrinkage
With the cashless systems' inbuilt recording feature, the stations keep track of PPE usage. Real time data can tell you who is using PPE and how many items each employee has used, curtailing any excessive safety equipment usage.
Contractors / Visitors
Contractors and visitors to your workplace can have access to your PPE vending machines as required. You can issue contractors with their own 'Contractor Card' with full access to products in the safety machine through the inbuilt cashless systems. It may be necessary to advise contractors that the safety equipment is available to them and usage will be subsequently invoiced to the contracting firm. When used to retrieve usage information, the cashless system's data collection/audit card can provide all relevant usage data, for example contractor name, time and date, product accessed etc.
Visitors to your workplace who 'forget' or who do not have the correct PPE to enter your workplace can also access items through a station. These items can be purchased through with a coin/notereader option, or visitors can be issued with a 'Visitor Card' to use the cashless systems; again, the choice is yours.
Loading / Refilling
It is important to re-stock your Safety Station correctly every time. A preprepared 'Imprest' sheet will identify what products are stocked in each selection. Reloading is easy as product trays pull forward and tilt down for ease of loading. You must ensure that each space in the spiral has a product loaded into it, as the spirals rotate one revolution each time a selection button is pressed.
Information Available
Cashless systems record all key data, allowing you to easily produce spreadsheets and graphs of product usage. Information available for analysis includes:
- Station number
- Date and time of purchase
- Items dispensed
- Usage by product description
- Total dollar value of products dispensed
- Total dollar value - Contractor usage
- Audit card download and reset
For more information on PPE vending machines contact Safety Stations today.
