Employee safety is an important factor in every industry. According to the International Labor Organization, more than 2.78 million people die as a result of occupational accidents or work-related diseases each year.
The Orange County Sanitation District in Huntington Beach, California provides wastewater collection, treatment, and disposal services for approximately 2.6 million people. They had a combination of loud industrial equipment, cavernous space, and highly reflective surfaces creating an acoustic nightmare.
Dust particles become airborne during indoor metalworking processes like welding and plasma cutting. They also become airborne during the manufacturing and processing of food, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and other dry products.
Who takes the blame when construction projects get behind schedule or over budget? Is it the project manager? The front line worker? The subcontractor? The answer would be no to all three. The likely scapegoat when things goes wrong is usually Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS). And why is this true? It’s because too often the safety of the worker is sacrificed for the sake of speed and production.
When COVID-19 struck the global economy, it did particular damage to the food industry. Many restaurants were forced to close. Those that survived had to quickly adopt technological systems and practices that allowed for continued business.
Although safety is the primary concern when purchasing Flame Resistant Clothing (FRC), consider the environmental impact of the manufacture of those garments. Adopting responsible manufacturing measures is not only the right thing to do, it’s good for business.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic affected almost every workplace in the country, online training was just another tool in the safety trainer’s tool chest. But since the pandemic has forced workplace closures, employee furloughs, social distancing, and a general rethinking of the way we do business, online training has become a vital method to accomplish necessary training.
As employees return to work, many employers may find they have fallen behind on workplace EHS training. Others find they need to modify training in light of social distancing guidelines that restrict large gatherings of workers with in-person classroom sessions or on-site consultants.
During this pandemic year, think how difficult and sad it has been not hearing the sounds we love. Now, imagine if your hearing were gone forever or seriously impaired. It’s not a good situation, but it’s a real one, especially in the industrial workplace.
As manufacturers learned about the seven wastes that lean organizations seek to eliminate — overproduction, waiting, conveyance/movement, processing, inventory, motion, and correction — many added an eighth: underutilized talent.
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