Those of us who work in a fast paced manufacturing environment know the drill. You're only as good as what you shipped this week. It's all about goals, targets, schedules, reschedules, urgent requests, budgets, benchmarks and competitive incentives. Did you make your number, hit the target, meet the forecast? What's going to ship next quarter? Are we on target for the year? What about next year? It never ends.

So where does all this leave safety? Here's my take.

The Pressure to Ignore Safety

The pressure to succeed and stay competitive can cause people in manufacturing to cut corners on safety. It's convenient to ignore potential problems or hazards on the shop floor just to "feed the productivity beast" and get product out the door. "Whip it and ship it!" That's the battle cry each and every day.

Of course, the consequences of this attitude can be disastrous. You can see the signs all around. Workers are overworked, morale is down. As a result, the work environment becomes unsafe. Incidents and accidents happen more frequently. Lost time increases. Employees believe management doesn't care and isn't committed to providing a safe and healthy work environment.

Fighting to Keep Safety on Track

The tense and hectic dynamic of manufacturing work is not going to change any time soon. And that's fine. But as a safety manager in such an environment, my job is to make sure we don't compromise safety for the sake of hitting that ship target. I can't let that happen. My role is to say STOP before it's too late.

Carrying the message of safety to a bunch of workers trying to get a shipment out the door isn't easy. Sometimes it's downright unpleasant. "Oh #*$%!! Here comes the "safety guy" - where are my safety glasses?" "What's the complaint now?!"

But it's not just about the safety manager. I've worked in more than my share of manufacturing positions and worn many hats--production control, QC, manufacturing, lean manufacturing, projects, safety and various combinations. So I can see it from all points of view. I can sum up what I've learned in one statement: Safety is everyone's responsibility!

A Formula for Safety Success in Manufacturing

This might sound like a cliché. But it's true. Everyone can work together to create and maintain a safe workplace and still focus on the bottom line - keeping the customer happy and meeting required profit margins. What's more, they have to.

Maintaining a safe and healthy work environment is a constant and continuous effort that is just as important as "hitting the number" each quarter. So it needs to be treated like a business function. Manufacturing, quality, shipment and safety metrics should all be measured and monitored. We need to change the company mission statement right now from: "To make a quality product on time" to: "To make a quality product on time safely."

Management has to set the tone. If the work force doesn't believe management cares about safety, then they won't either. Managers need to show workers that they do care about safety. You know, lead by example. Make everyone accountable every day. Applaud and celebrate successes and achievements, learn, improve, analyze mistakes and failures so they can be celebrated as future successes.

Conclusion

We all spend a good part of our lives at work. So let's make it a safe place to be. We need to learn to think about safety every day - not just in manufacturing but in other settings. I challenge all of you: Don't let safety become a casualty of business growth. Instead, make sure they both improve and grow together.

POP QUIZ

Is Manufacturing the Most Dangerous Industry?

Jim's piece chronicles the pressures that lead to incidents and accidents in the manufacturing industry. But just how dangerous is manufacturing? How does it rank with other industries? Here are the five industries with the most reported workplace injuries in 2004. See if you can rank them in order from most to least dangerous:

a. Construction
b. Mining/Quarry
c. Manufacturing
d. Agriculture
e. Transportation/Utilities

Answer: The correct order, based upon the rate of death per 100,000 workers in 2004, is b, d, a, e, c. Details:

1. Mining (22.3 deaths per 100,000 workers)
2. Agriculture (20.9)
3. Construction (11.4)
4. Transportation (10)
5. Manufacturing (2.8)

Source: National Safety Council, Injury Facts, 2004-2005

CHRONICLE OF A PREVENTABLE DEATH

Heat Stress & the Importance of Training

By Glenn Demby

It's hot out there, folks. Hopefully, all of you have trained your workers on the dangers of heat stress including how to recognize and react to the symptoms of various heat-related illnesses. If you haven't, you're putting your workers' lives in jeopardy.

This is not hyperbole. Here's an example how a company's failure to provide education about heat stress directly contributed to a worker's tragic death.

The Story Begins

The story begins in Newfoundland in the spring of 1992. Anthony Dalton and Ronald Morrissey are trained boilermakers and good friends. They decide to take a job in New Brunswick repairing pipes in a paper mill. Here's a chronicle of what happened next:

May 20, 1992

Dalton and Morrissey report for their first day of work. The temperatures outside are high for May - 22° C and 35% humidity. It's even hotter in the mill where chemicals are heated in enclosed spaces - especially on the scaffolds where Dalton and Morrissey are working. Nobody tells them anything about the dangers of heat stress. Later, the contractor will testify that he assumed that trained boilermakers would know all about heat stress. It turns out to be a tragically flawed assumption.

Dalton and Morrissey work all day in the heat. Dalton starts experiencing fatigue. It's the first warning sign. But since neither man knows anything about the signs of heat stress, it goes unrecognized.

May 21, 1992

The outdoor temperature has climbed to 28.5° C. Humidity is at 33%. The heat and hard work in the mill continue. Dalton and Morrissey work the entire day. Dalton is getting worse. When the two get back to their motel after work, Dalton starts experiencing muscle cramps. He's exhausted. He passes out on the bathroom floor of the motel room. He drinks a beer, not realizing that the last thing somebody in his condition should do is drink alcohol.

May 22, 1992

It's even hotter today - 30.5° C. Dalton is still exhausted but decides to drag himself to work. He spends the morning inside one of the tanks helping to build a scaffold. He's in big trouble. After afternoon break, he tells the supervisor that he's just too exhausted to go back to work. He sits on the floor with his back against the base of a column. When the shift ends, he can barely stand up. He's incoherent. He stumbles about 100 metres and finally collapses. Even now, nobody knows what's wrong. The ambulance takes Dalton to the hospital. But it's too late. Dalton dies of heat stroke the next day.

The Moral

Perhaps the saddest part of the death of Anthony Dalton is that it could have been prevented. There was ample warning: Dalton's fatigue, the cramps, his passing out on the bathroom floor, etc. Anybody attuned to the signs of heat stress would have recognized what was going on and acted while there was still time. Tragically, because none of the workers or supervisors with whom Dalton worked had received any education on heat stress, every opportunity to save him was missed.

NOTE: This story is reprinted from Bongarde Media's newsletter, Safety Compliance Insider, Vol. 2, No. 6, page 7.

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