Case Study

Manufacturing Plant With 2000 Employees

Results

This study involves two manufacturing plants located side by side and sharing common ground operation equipment. The result of this effort has been the reduction in expenditures, both direct and indirect due to all material handling strain, sprain injuries to the tune of over $370,000 per year and $0 spending on loss time, material handling injuries for 8 years in a row.

Summary

Statistically, the two plants were doing a very decent job of controlling injuries but with the arrival of a new CEO, a directive was given to halve the current incident rate and recordable injury rate. Training 2000 employees was a task that took just over 6 months and establishing the new Safety Culture took about a year and a half longer. However, the outcome was better than expected and resulted in a significant reduction in new cases and a complete eradication of loss time injuries that actually carried over for 8 more years.

Method

Initial training was rolled out as a Train-the-Trainer for both buildings. This included a classroom training session followed by task site training to the point that the task site trainers new how to use PowerLift® technique at each and every work site. Having a large employee population required certifying some 40 trainers from each facility. Classroom trainers numbered a total of 12 individuals with 28 task site trainers.

The classroom trainers delivered the initial 2 hour PowerLift® course with the confines of the classroom and then released the employees to their respective task sites. There the task site trainers took each individual employee through their daily work routines and demonstrated use of the technique followed by a show of competency by each employee.

The training at this facility was extremely thorough in that each and every lead person and supervisor was given the expectation that they would correct any errant behavior immediately upon observation of it. A culture was quickly established that was understood to mean; “We do not back lift at this facility, we only use PowerLift®”. In areas where the task was impossible to accomplish safely and with good technique, ergonomic assessment was brought to bear eliminating the offending material handling hazards.