A safer workplace is possible if everyone learns—and follows—safety rules
When it comes to your business, you want it to be as safe as it can. But in order to avoid accidents, you need to know what causes them. We’ve identified some common issues that manufacturers face and some solutions to help prevent losses before they happen.
We’ve found these to be the top causes of non-fatal workplace accidents*:
- Overexertion—32.6%
- Falls, slips, and trips—26.8%
- Contact with object—23.4%
- Violence and other injuries—6.6%
- Transportation incidents—5.5%
- All other—5.1%
*Data from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, November 2016
The first step in avoiding these kinds of accidents is to identify the exposures you face in your workplace. We’ve taken a look and found some common categories:
- Safety management system: Businesses have an informal program in place, but haven’t identified safety gaps that need addressing. Often, there’s little or no management or supervisor accountability.
- Machining: A lack of safety guarding and procedures for punching, cutting, bending, and stamping that can lead to injuries like in-running nips or amputations.
- Welding: Safety protocols that don’t protect workers from welding fumes, hexavalent chrome, manganese, and radiation.
- Painting: Procedures that don’t go far enough to deal with fumes from solvents and organics to protect workers from inhalation, skin exposure, and explosion.
- Return to work program: The plan is limited or non-existent and often has uncontrolled costs.
We can help you deal with issues in each of these areas and identify others that are unique to your business.
It begins with a safety management review. We’ll work with you to help determine the top areas in your business that should be examined based on your losses and compliance history.
Then, we’ll do an on-site audit and analysis of your operations to help identify the underlying causes of loss.
Once the analysis is done, we’ll meet with your management team to review the gaps and help develop a plan of action with goals and strategies to achieve your safety objectives.
In addition to the safety management review, we can also help you identify ergonomic issues within the company. The analysis identifies the locations and specific job tasks that contribute to high injury rates. We’ll also assist you with creating an ergonomic safety plan.
Industrial hygiene analysis is also available to help identify noise and air hazards in your business. We’ll work with you to reduce those concerns.
Of course, the successful implementation of any plan relies on good training. We can help your management team and supervisors understand the importance of safety and the best ways to implement it in your workplace. Our training covers:
- Workers’ compensation and the real costs of accidents
- A supervisor’s role and responsibility for safety
- Safety culture development
- Hazard recognition and control
- OSHA compliance overview
- Accident investigation training with root cause analysis
These are just some of the ways we can help you make your workplace safer.
