An innovative industrial tyre changer has earned Toyota Material Handling Australia (TMHA) a safety award.

The leading material handling equipment company won the WorkCover NSW SafeWork Award in the "best solution to an identified workplace health and safety issue" category from a field of 37 nominees and 11 finalists.

The TMHA Industrial Tyre Changer was developed for forklift trucks, towing tractors and skid-steer loaders.

A team of workshop staff and management at TMHA's Moorebank headquarters began work on the tyre changer in May 2009 as part of the company's 5S and Kaizen Safety team's objective of identifying opportunities for improvement in the workplace.

The TMHA technicians and management worked together to create a purpose-built lifter which allows the user to safely and securely lift the wheel to the required height, and easily rotate it to align the rim and wheel studs.

The design, developed under the Toyota "kaizen" philosophy of continuous improvement, has evolved through six versions in a little over 12 months.

SafeWork Award judges praised the tyre changer for its ingenuity and simplicity of operation.

TMHA Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer Steve Takacs congratulated the workshop team and reiterated the importance that the Toyota culture places on workplace health and safety.

"Toyota has an 85-year history of commitment to workplace health and safety,” Takacs says. “Our ongoing objective has always been zero harm in each and every one of our worksites around the world.

"The development of the tyre changer goes to the heart of the Toyota Way, which is based on the philosophy of kaizen or continuous improvement; the fundamental requirement to go to the source to feel, see, touch and understand the issue; and the implementation strategy of Plan, Do, Check, Action.

"The kaizen project team has designed jigs and tools to help take the risks out of heavy manual work performed in the workshop and during field service," Takacs adds.

"Their enthusiasm for the proactive development of tools and jigs to minimise potential harm has created a multitude of additional ideas from our workshop team.

"Many of these ideas have also been developed and adopted for use in our workplaces."