Education

Hazell PIN is safe, rewarding

The company entered its idea in the CCAA Tasmania Environment Health and Safety Awards 2012 and won for the best solution to an identified workplace health and safety issue.

Hazell Bros identified that forklifts on-site posed a high risk of being involved in an accident for two main reasons.

They are small and harder to see, particularly by larger machinery. Secondly, forklifts are easy to get into and more easily accessible by sub-contractors, who may have less experience operating them on a quarry site.

The company decided to fit every machine with a personal identification number (PIN) activated ignition system, which makes a vehicle disabled unless driven by a licensed and approved employee.

?We?ve used this idea at the Leslie Vale Quarry,? said John Sherburd, Hazell?s business manager for quarries. ?We started on the forklifts, but we?ve now got it on the truck fleet and the concrete agitators.?

Sherburd said that the company will have the PIN system on all the equipment used at the site, including haul trucks and loaders. According to the company, it was a great piece of ?thinking outside the square? by the quarry management team.

PINs are allocated to staff at the site that need access to fuel; that same PIN is used to allow access to the machinery.

?You don?t want to give others your PIN number for fuel so everyone keeps it to themselves,? said Sherburd.

The company developed the idea in conjunction with its IT department. The database behind the system requires the full details of the user before a PIN can be issued. It ensures that there is a valid licence number and expiry dates are maintained.

Now only licensed operators who are employees of Hazell are able to use machinery at the site, thereby eliminating the hazard of having sub-contractors and suppliers who may not be across a company?s safety systems and procedures.

There have been no negative impacts to productivity at the quarry and there has been a very positive response from employees and a strengthening of the company?s safety culture.

The system is now being implemented into Hazell?s truck and loader fleet where it not only controls who can start a vehicle, but it records the times the vehicle was used, which is excellent as an audit tool when checking log books.

It is also used by the workshop as a way to monitor and manage maintenance on vehicles, creating even more efficiencies.

The system costs approximately $900 to fit a unit to a machine.

Source: Hazell Bros

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