Celebrating health & safety

Peter Mayow was presented with a special trophy celebrating his lifelong contribution to health and safety at this year’s Site Safe Construction Health and Safety Awards in Auckland early last month. Three hundred other guests joined Mayow – Site Safe’s newest Life Member and former chairman – at the event, which celebrates businesses and individuals who are considered to be leading the way in health and safety.

Mach3 Engineering was awarded the Kensington Swan Safety Leadership Award for owner Anna Chapman’s dedication tog embedding health and safety into the business.

The judges said they were impressed by Chapman’s positive, hands-on approach, which has made health and safety central to Mach3’s approach.

Via its engaging practices, Mach3 has brought about a change in culture and has embraced health and safety in a practical and positive way as well as going the extra mile to share its learnings with other companies and challenging itself to continuously improve.

Aaron Billing took out the WorkSafe Safety Contribution Award for leading and inspiring a dramatic culture change at Upright Scaffolding, with the judges noting it “was great to see individuals like Aaron stepping up and speaking up.” They said Billing’s courage, enthusiasm and drive helped to inspire a dramatic culture change, where health and safety always comes first. Billing challenged staff and management to change the way they operated the company and to become the “All Blacks Standard” of the scaffolding industry. As a result, the company has changed its mindset from being scaffolders to being a team that is there to look out for each other.

Designerscope scooped the Unitec Safety Innovation Award for small to medium organisations for its cabinet levelling system. The Auckland-based business created a trademarked system which eliminates the need for cabinetry installers to lie down, sprawled across hard floors with no external visibility, to level cabinets. Instead they can sit comfortably and upright, with full visibility of their surroundings while they work.

Judges said they were impressed by how deceptively simple this innovative idea was – making the task easier, safer and faster and significantly reducing the risk of injury.

Designerscope’s Chief Executive Robyn de Bruin-Judge said the idea simply sprang from a “no, there must be a better way of doing the job” moment.

PK Steel received a Judge’s Special Mention in this category for their hydraulic lif ting device developed to safely install large steel loads at height.

Fulton Hogan HEB Joint Venture won the Vertical Horizonz Safety Innovation Award for large organisations with its innovative pipe lif ting beam and truck deck fall restraint system.

The judges said the clever idea was a simple and effective solution that challenged standard practice and had already produced significant benefits, helping to eliminate risks and improve health and safety outcomes.

The system, developed for the Waikato Expressway project, eliminates the need for Hiab drivers to work at heights while unloading large pipes from their trucks. It also includes a new truck deck fall restraint system for preventing falls while loading or unloading smaller pipes.

Project Manager Tony Adams said one of the biggest risks they faced on the project was workers using ladders on truck decks.

“It was an accident waiting to happen. We made some simple improvements and invented this practical approach to what has historically been common risk.”

This year Site Safe had a record of more than 240 graduates, many of whom attended the official graduation ceremony at Alexandra Park. By participating in a range of Site Safe courses, students earn NZQA credits towards the Certificate in Construction Site Safety qualification, which leads to lifelong learning and the development of leadership skills in health and safety.