Mount Thorley Warkworth jack wins safety award

A jack designed at Mount Thorley Warkworth to make lifting heavy machinery safer won the 2008 New South Wales Minerals Council Safety Innovation Award.

The new jack can lift 100 tonne loads including mining trucks, and not only reduces the likelihood of injury but is cheaper to produce than existing equipment.

Mount Thorley Warkworth's Wayne Nealon came up with the idea after recognising employees were at risk from heavy machinery falling on them with existing equipment, and worked with reliability engineer Myles Huntly to develop the design.

"The new jack is safer, simpler, and needs fewer people to operate," Mr Nealon said.

The existing safety rules at most mines require maintenance personnel to use a heavy machinery jack to raise trucks or other equipment, and then use a solid stand to support the load in the event the jack fails.

But the procedure means a maintenance team member has to find two areas simultaneously to place a stand and a jack, and to work under a suspended load - a potentially serious safety risk.

"Surprisingly, we couldn't find alternative jacks on the market that avoided this risk," Mr Nealon said.

"We believed a locking jack stand, designed and built for the purpose, would require relatively basic engineering and design at a cost that was comparable, and we were right, it can save more than $20,000 less than the equipment it is replacing."
 
Mount Thorley Warkworth General Manager Operations Cam Halfpenny said Wayne, Myles and the team members who worked on the project deserved full credit for their efforts.

"We encourage employees and contractors at our mines to recognise potential safety hazards and areas where work can be made more efficient," Mr Halfpenny said.

"Not only has Wayne come up with an invention that works and is safer, but to build such a high quality product at a lower price is an extra bonus."