Napier OnGas senior driver fuels awards win

Napier OnGas senior driver Nakia (Nick) Holland using his workable solution, which won a national award at the Health and Safety awards on Wednesday night. Photo/supplied.

A Napier man's "Kiwi ingenuity" fuelled Vector's OnGas win at the Health and Safety awards in Auckland on Wednesday night.

Nakia (Nick) Holland's idea to converge his past experience from the dairy industry to make key repetitive tasks safer won the company the Workplace Best Initiative to Address a Health Risk Award.

Vector delivers energy and communication services throughout the country and is the largest distributor of electricity and gas nationally.

Mr Holland is one of about 60 OnGas staff whose jobs are to test nearly 6000 LPG bottle for leaks using a spray bottle every day before they are filled and sent out to customers.

This task can be straining on the body so Mr Holland decided to replace the spray bottle with something similar to the overhead pneumatic teat sprayers he used when working on a dairy farm.

The Napier OnGas senior driver said it was a bit like what he did in the dairy shed, spraying the cows down once they finished milking them.

After about 12 months of testing, refinement and installation, the new system was fully installed at all 10 OnGas depots in New Zealand in June last year.

Since then there have been no reports of pain or discomfort relating to hands, wrists, or elbows in its LPG filling teams.

Mr Holland said it was gratifying to know his idea has had such a strong impact.

"It does give me a bit of satisfaction to know something I did is helping the whole country."

He said he had noticed within his team a huge improvement from staff as the pain and discomfort had been significantly reduced.

Even though he came up with the award-winning idea, Mr Holland said it was a real team effort.

"It was a big team play in order to get it done."

Vector's general manager gas trading Brenda Talacek said the award provided recognition of the efforts from OnGas teams across New Zealand to develop the idea into a workable solution.

"Nick had a great idea and his team saw the potential to use a bit of Kiwi ingenuity to make one of our key repetitive tasks safer and remove the dangers of strain injuries."

Vector's chief risk officer Kate Beddoe said the win demonstrated the strong safety culture at Vector and OnGas.

"Strong support right across the business has meant we've been able to make a real and tangible difference not only to our fillers' daily jobs but also their families and the communities we operate in by keeping our people healthy and safe."

Worksafe Chief executive Nicole Rosie said Vector had created an environment that encouraged their people to be fully engaged in improving health and safety.

"This is a critical element in improving the health and safety outcomes in every business."