Handling initiative introduced by staff on mine site to reduce risk

Recently, Tyco staff working on mining sites in Newman, WA, initiated a new safety handling improvement that has dramatically reduced exposure to situations which could lead to injury. The ingenuity of Tyco’s staff is an excellent example of how Tyco, which openly encourages staff to discuss workplace safety, is supporting its EHS goal of ‘Zero Harm to People and the Environment’. 

Tyco fire solution on Newman mine site: Wormald vehicle fitted with new safety initative next to Liebherr 9400.

The safety modification was designed to reduce the enormous levels of manual handling by vehicle system technicians, a recurring issue that staff experienced while carrying out servicing on customer vehicles, particularly large mining excavators.

While servicing the mobile aqueous film forming foam (AFFF) systems, the machine needs to be discharged. This involves purging the ring mains with water and air, and then refilling and recharging the system.

To do this, vehicles are fitted with three retractable hose reels which are filled with air, water/foam and nitrogen. The air is provided by an air compressor on the back of the service truck, which also drives a pneumatic water pump, pumping water for cylinder refilling and ring main purging.

According to Christine Cotton, Tyco’s regional general manager for Western Australia, “Previously, our technicians would be required to carry the foam concentrate up the machine ladders in 20 L drums, making several trips. Some of these systems can require up to 56 L of foam concentrate and the ladders are steep and slippery. The mandatory three points of contact, a basic safety guideline when ascending and descending ladders, simply cannot be maintained.”

The modification initiated by Tyco staff means that technicians now only need to return to the vehicle once, switch the valve over on the water hose reel from water to AFFF, then turn on a 12 V pump mounted inside the driver side cabin. The foam concentrate is then drawn from a tank mounted on the back of the trucks and pumped up to where the technician needs it. When the foam concentrate tank requires refilling, a quick fill point has been installed at ground level allowing easy refill back at the depot, eliminating the need for technicians to fill the tank by hand on the back of the truck where they could be exposed to a working at heights issue.

“This initiative is a wonderful example of how our business collaborates on workplace safety. We have been so impressed with this new staff safety initiative, we have subsequently made improvements to all four service trucks,” said Cotton.