Plant Services - September 2007 - (Page 41) MANAGEMENT Safety material handling, Ingersoll Rand (www.irtools.com/lifting), “But often they don’t call until the major equipment is done and they find they have a problem.” If ergonomics expertise is drawn on at the design stage, it can be integrated with the process and equipment, reducing the potential for injury and sometimes reducing labor costs and product damage. For example, a facility receiving automobile hoods found out too late that they were packed too compactly for automatic unloading. “ ey had to get the fi rst one out manually,” Pasko says, which led to operator injuries, product damage and unplanned unloading time. Better plants are more proactive, bringing safety personnel to see vendors’ equipment before the specifications are finalized. “ ey used to be walking in after the engineering was done and beating up the engineers,” Pasko says. “Now safety is coming upstream to the vendors’ plants. And there are more safety people – they’re coming in groups.” Safer plants are open to better ways of doing things. “My worst meeting was with an industrial facility that did not see the need,” says Karla Lemmon, program manager, Honeywell Instant Alert (www.buildingsolutions.honeywell.com). She was visiting to describe an instant Web-based system for emergency and regular communications via land lines, cellular service, text messaging, e-mail, etc. e system can protect the surrounding community as well as the plant. “ ey said nothing has happened to warrant it,” Lemmon adds. “It may take an incident for that company to understand.” Perhaps the most telling behavior takes place when an incident occurs without injury. “ is does not mean that this incident should be forgotten,” says Michael Hewitt, vice president, Global Workplace Safety Practice, DuPont (www2.dupont.com/Con sulting_Services/en_US/). “Rather, it is important to acknowledge the incident and question why it occurred.” S A safety-minded company will conduct a thorough incident investigation and try to capture and analyze the information from the event, reevaluate the process and make the necessary changes or corrections to ensure that the incident doesn’t happen again. A less-safety-minded company won’t take the time to investigate because there was no injury. “Just because no one got hurt in this particular incident that does not mean that the outcome will be as favorable the next time,” Hewitt says. Shaft alignment in a Flash® How to get safer If you see the opportunity to protect personnel or increase profits by improving safety, experts offer far more detailed advice than we have space to print on how to migrate to a safer culture. Several resources that express their consensus succinctly are posted on or linked through our Web site (see sidebar, “More at www.PlantServices. com/thismonth”). e two most often repeated keys: the drive to safety must come from the top, and it must become everyone’s core value. “ e main difference that I have witnessed is in the level of management commitment,” says Hewitt. He emphasizes “Felt Leadership, a DuPont concept that defines leaders as those with visible commitment and passion for safety – and a dedicated involvement by all in the implementation of the overall safety management process.” Hewitt says Felt Leadership: • Is easily observable • Clearly demonstrates belief in safety • Makes a positive impression on employees • Demonstrates a personal commitment • Pervades the organization • Affects all employees • Involves all employees e principles of Felt Leadership include: • Be visible to the organization • Be relentless about time with people .PLANTSERVICES. New! Offset shaft alignment in a Flash. A new hardware+software expansion kit is now available for the XA that allows quick and easy alignments of offset (cardan) machine shafts. The system incorporates on-screen Flash® animations that actually walk the user through the offset shaft alignment process! Quickly align your offset shafts to reduce wear on gearboxes, bearings and offset joints. www.vibralign.com 800-379-2250 Flash is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated. 41 http://www.irtools.com/lifting http://www.PlantServices.com/thismonth http://www.PlantServices.com/thismonth http://www.buildingsolutions.honeywell.com http://www.buildingsolutions.honeywell.com http://www.vibralign.com http://www2.dupont.com/Consulting_Services/en_US/ http://www2.dupont.com/Consulting_Services/en_US/ http://www.PLANTSERVICES.com
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