Advising manufacturers to keep their plants safe is basically stating the obvious. Among several other safety statistics out there, Eurostat shows that 31.4% of all non-fatal accidents at work in the EU happened on industrial sites.
Credit: Clker-Free-Vector-Images / Pixabay
Credit: Clker-Free-Vector-Images / Pixabay / CC0.
In addition, several regulatory agencies like EU-OSHA and HSE also regularly issue guidelines to help keep industrial workers safe. Despite all the measures in place, accidents like falling from height, being struck by falling objects, crashes, and collisions still happen often.
In the following post, we'll look at five necessities for a safe working plant. The objective of each of the five points below is proactivity — addressing safety matters before things go wrong.
The information empowers manufacturers to create a system that severely limits the chances of accidents occurring.
1. Safety supervision
One of the primary steps that will keep your employees safe is the provision of adequate safety oversight. It would be difficult to achieve a sustainable or consistent level of safety standards in a manufacturing plant without an able oversight function. Thus, supervision has always played a key role in manufacturing safety.
However, it's one thing to have safety supervision available, and quite another for such supervision to be effective. Manufacturers need to regularly assess exactly how effective and suitable their safety supervisors are for the task at hand. Effective supervision includes having the foresight to identify hazards and risks in the work area, and taking appropriate preventive action. This is necessary to ensure work tasks are carried out safely.
In your search for an adept safety supervisor, here are some very desirable qualities to look for:
- firm leadership abilities and other soft skills
- relevant technical knowledge for your niche - though there are exceptions to every rule, if you run a chemical plant, a supervisor with years of construction experience would likely recognize hazards in construction better than those at your chemical plant
- relevant qualifications and certifications.
That said, among other things, safety supervision will cover:
- monitoring, enforcing and improving safety matters in the plant
- tracking and enforcing compliance with regards to the plant’s safety policies and regulatory safety standards and stipulations
- recommending and monitoring PPE usage
- updating safety policies — reviewing and updating current safety management protocols
Still, even the best supervisors can’t be everywhere at once or handle everything safety-related by themselves.
2. In-house risk management
A common challenge in manufacturing is that too many other priorities gradually overshadow safety. Manufacturers need to control costs, increase productivity, adopt new technologies, find skilled staff and keep everyone safe. Additionally, they often face disruptive supply chain issues.
Under these circumstances, it's easy to slip into firefighting mode — where they are reactively solving one safety-related problem after another. While you might not be able to completely avoid safety risks, you can certainly anticipate and mitigate these risks and hazards. That is achievable through an established and frequently updated risk management process.
Here's what that process looks like:
- regular safety audits to identify inherent hazards
- unsafe behavior detection and deterrence policies
- obtaining and incorporating feedback from the plant floor and all other units
- adopting immediate and appropriate solutions to identified hazards.
3. Continuous training
More safety incidents occur when workers lack adequate training to safely handle their assigned tasks. For a start, it's vital that safety training is incorporated as an integral part of the onboarding process at every plant.
Bryan Christensen, CEO, Limble
The author, Bryan Christiansen is the founder and CEO of Limble CMMS. Limble is a modern, easy-to-use mobile CMMS software that takes the stress and chaos out of maintenance by helping managers organize, automate, and streamline their maintenance operations.
Thoroughly train new hires, while providing ongoing training to more experienced workers, especially when they are being assigned new responsibilities.
Taking the time to ensure that workers are properly trained can prevent permanent, life-altering injuries and musculoskeletal issues.
From the moment they are employed at the plant, all employees must be aware of all safety procedures, especially with regards to their specific position. Also, special training should occur periodically to further reduce the risks of accidents.
4. Emergency response procedures
Employers are required to ensure that staff are trained in workplace emergency procedures. This information will usually cover what to do in situations like fire or some other emergency.
Emergency procedures must be frequently updated and provide employees with information like:
- recognizing an emergency
- raising alarms
- emergency evacuation procedures
- specific equipment that must be shutdown
- alerting the first responders
- basic first aid training
- location of emergency exits
Usually, these procedures will differ depending on the kind of products being produced, but at the minimum, they will include arrangements for first aid, lockdown, evacuation plans, etc.
5. Infrastructure Maintenance
Employees have a better chance of having a safe day at work if physical structures, machinery, and equipment are all regularly maintained and kept in optimal condition.
Lack of maintenance, inadequate or poor maintenance can result in accidents, dangerous situations, and lingering health problems. With everything else that manufacturers handle daily, they can streamline their infrastructure maintenance and reliability through automation and strategically-planned maintenance. This is easily achievable with manufacturing maintenance software that conveniently handles:
- work requests and work order management
- maintenance planning and scheduling
- spare parts inventory management
In conclusion
It's in everyone's best interest to keep the plant floor safe — and a better way to handle safety matters is to be as proactive as possible. Hopefully, the above discussion will help you to achieve that.
- Bryan Christiansen is the founder and CEO of Limble CMMS. Limble is a modern, easy-to-use mobile CMMS software that takes the stress and chaos out of maintenance by helping managers organize, automate, and streamline their maintenance operations.
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