Cementation has earned an innovation award from the Ontario Mine Contractors Safety Association (OMCSA) for its solution to improve safety around the use of tuggers.
The company was recognized during the recent Mining Health and Safety Conference, hosted by Workplace Safety North, held April 30 and May 1 in Sudbury.
In operation for 70 years, the OMCSA is the oldest health and safety association in Canada, noted Jake Hughes, the safety and training superintendent with Technica Mining, and the OMCSA’s interim chair.
It comprises just under 40 members and holds an innovation contest every year in an effort to find practical solutions to common problems among the province’s mine contractors.
“This is a pretty neat contest,” Hughes said. “It looks at ideas that come from the floor … that come into fruition for the companies to use in their operations around improving health and safety.”
This year, the organization received five submissions — a high submission rate, Hughes noted — and Cementation was the winner for the third year running.
Their solution was particularly impressive because it introduced multiple innovations to enhance the user experience around tuggers, he added. A tugger is a piece of mechanized equipment that helps an operator pull items toward them.
“Tuggers are a very useful piece of equipment,” Hughes said. “I'd say they're actually essential in the contracting role, but there are some inherent serious risks, especially around tension line management.”
Cementation developed a remote actuator so the tugger can be operated from a distance in order to remove the operator from the machine’s line of fire.
The company additionally created a full-height guard to protect the operator, and because it’s modular, it can be packed into the unit to keep all the components together.
It also developed a safety valve that enables an operator to get rid of excess air pressure built up in the tugger, which can remain even after it’s turned off.
Finally, the company developed a means to independently test the tugger’s braking system.
For their efforts, Cementation was presented with the Moran Group Globe Award, which was accepted by Steve Wrixon, Cementation’s vice-president of health, safety and environment for the Americas, and the emcee for the WSN Mining Health and Safety Conference.
Alex MacIntyre & Associates earned second place for its fork stick, a long, metal stick that workers use to adjust the width of forks on a forklift.
This innovation, which was created from waste material, was developed after workers experienced hand injuries at pinch points in the forks. Hughes called it “inexpensive, highly effective and eliminates hand injuries.”
In third place is a pipe sling, developed by Dumas Mining, that allows pipe to be moved through narrow areas, reducing the risk of hang-up. Hughes noted that this innovation was a collaboration amongst the company’s operations, maintenance and engineering departments.
Fourth place went to Technica Mining for its ‘go-no-go’ gauge for concrete couplings. The company does a lot of work pumping concrete, but there are various designs, styles, and sizes of clamps, couplings, fittings and elbows, which can create risk, Hughes noted. The design for this set of gauges came out of a “near miss” the company while on a job.
The solution is a set of gauges that can be used to identify the different couplers. Made in house and supplied with each pump, the gauges enable a “quick and effective check by operators in the field,” Hughes said.
Rounding out the contest, in fifth place, is Redpath, with its creation of a jumbo toolbox.
It’s not uncommon, Hughes said, that there’s a lack of storage space for all the components operators need on a jumbo drill rig.
Redpath’s toolbox enables operators to store all those components and supplies in one place, removing obstacles and tripping hazards, and creating better organization.
