Working magic in the workshop

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Auckland company Spiral Drillers Civil has a secret weapon when it comes to big, gnarly workplace problems.

Spiral Drillers Project Manager Baran Balaban (right) with Operations Manager Geoff Paton, who designs many of the innovative tools the company comes up with, at the awards night.

PILING CONTRACTORS Spiral Drillers Civil are forever out on site plying their trade of cast in situ reinforced concrete and timber piles, driven piles and screw piles. It’s hard often hazardous work, and that’s where their workshop and Operations Manager Geoff Paton comes in.

Tools that reduce worker risk

Geoff is the guy who develops most of the tools they have come up with that reduce the risk to their workers and also provide a nice productivity boost.

Sometimes it’s a relatively simple thing, such as a pile carrier designed to get into tight places. It’s like a very heavy-duty wheel-barrow that saves backs and muscles when getting piles into spots with tight access.

Other innovations are a bit more complicated, such as the driven pile splicing robot, which makes splicing pipes much easier and faster. Still others are finding new uses for existing tech. One of these is the concrete pile shaver, which is a modified digging bucket attached to an excavator.

Geoff and his workshop crew had special drilling bullets welded on, and the bucket is used to trim concrete from vertical surfaces easily.

Before this, trimming concrete from retaining walls before shotcreting them was being done by labourers carrying powered hand breakers and working from scaffolding.

Safety innovation winners

Thanks to these clever devices, Spiral Drillers won the Bettabuilt Safety Innovation Award for large organisations at the Site Safe Evening of Celebration last November.

As well as the carrier, bucket and robot examples, its entry included an adapted container for welding in that kept staff dry and sheltered, a digger-mounted pile cleaner and a forklift-mounted pile driving analyser testing unit.

The judges said the company is known for creating specialist equipment that boosts productivity and enhances its workers’ safety.

A previous Site Safe innovation award winner, the Auckland-based firm has been going since 1971.

The award judges said in their decision that Spiral Drillers are true safety innovators, working in the tough area of drilled and driven piles, sheet piles and underpinning.

‘The design and build work that goes on in their workshop helps to create an environment where hazards are eliminated or minimised.’

The judges could see ‘a start-to-finish, can-do attitude to identifying issues, analysing solutions and then doing something about it’.

Spiral Drillers Project Manager Baran Balaban (right) with Operations Manager Geoff Paton, who designs many of the innovative tools the company comes up with, at the awards night.

For more

For further information, visit www.spiraldrillers.co.nz.

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Spiral Drillers Project Manager Baran Balaban (right) with Operations Manager Geoff Paton, who designs many of the innovative tools the company comes up with, at the awards night.

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