How Safe Is Your Plant Floor?

Almost every day in the United States, a news story is released about a severe injury or fatality at a manufacturing facility. Most common contributing factors are:

• Inadequate safety training for younger or new employees. Statistics show that the injury rate is higher in the younger manufacturing workforce.
• Lack of awareness and understanding of what risks exist on older equipment. Seventy-five percent of U.S. manufacturing facilities are over 20 years old. These older manufacturing facilities are at a higher risk for machinery safety hazards due to the age of the equipment. 
• Machine safety is not a part of the company culture. 

Bringing safety onto the manufacturing floor calls for senior management involvement in raising the awareness of the workforce. One key action is involving each employee in the process. Using tools such as Polytron's Machine Safety Checklist and Job Hazard Checklist increases awareness of the environment and equipment where the work takes place every day. Providing each employee the appropriate checklist and asking everyone to answer each question and complete the form brings consistency to the plant floor approach to safety.

Conducting a Machine Safety Checklist on each machine on the plant floor gives a high-level review of the key questions called out by the major safety standards. The results provide an "at risk" status by simple YES/NO answers. The results on each machine reveal a picture of safety and points to high-risk machine priorities for immediate action to mitigate the company's risk level. Machine Safety Checklist responses of NO in one or more category indicates that action should be taken. The more NO responses, the higher the risk increasing the priority status for immediate action on the machinery.

Download the Machine Safety Checklist and Job Hazard Checklist today to begin the process of improving the safety of your plant floor.