8 Essential Safety Tips For The Manufacturing Industry
The Bureau of Labor Statistics in the United States indicates that approximately 2.9 million employees got injured or fell sick while at their workplaces in 2015.
These statistics represent an estimated rate of 3.0 instances for every 100 workers, a marginal improvement from 2014’s 3.2 figure. Whereas this is progressive, as an employer, you have a lot to do to enhance the safety of your staff.
Safety at the workplace goes beyond workers wearing brightly colored gear and adhering to daily workplace procedures.
Moreover, each industry has unique safety requirements, but there are essential safety tips for the manufacturing industry. Here are eight of them that your staff can adopt:
1. Establish A Safety Committee
Establishing a safety committee with a mandate of educating employees and enforcing safety guidelines is an excellent way to address safety concerns.
Also, the safety committee will play a critical role in mitigating potential risks of injuries occurring at the workplace.
Typically, the other critical role of your safety committee for those in the automotive industry is to partake in Product Safety, and Conformity Representative training popularly referred to as PSCR training.
Through the training, safety trainees can learn different skill sets to assess the different aspects of product quality. Finally, the safety committee will be responsible for the formulation of new safety policies.
2. Train Your Staff On The Hazards
Common safety hazards impacting manufacturing include electrical equipment and machine guards and exposure to toxic substances.
Often, these hazards expose your employees and factory to various risks, including health issues, explosions, and fires. Educating your staff about these hazards can be an effective preventative safety measure.
3. Perform Regular Safety Audits And Check-ups
Develop audit checklists across your factory and make it mandatory for all supervisors to go through and review the hazards and safety recommendations.
By re-evaluating your company’s safety procedures, facilities, and workers, you’ll enhance safety at your workplace.
Ultimately, this will increase efficiency while enabling you to comply with state and federal safety guidelines.
4. Take Corrective And Preventive Measures
Once you complete safety audits and check-ups, you must take corrective and preventive measures to enhance manufacturing safety in your company. You can accomplish this by taking your audit findings seriously.
For instance, if you discover some problems through the audit, ensure you direct your staff to implement corrective measures to address those problems.
On the contrary, if you don’t find any immediate hazards but determine that some areas require improvement, encourage your staff to take preventive measures.
5. Provide Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
Providing your employees with functional PPEs is crucial for enhanced manufacturing safety in your company.
Common PPEs you can provide to your staff include respirators, reflector jackets, safety goggles, and hard hats, among other PPEs needed for personal safety at the workplace.
Once you provide these PPEs to your employees, your responsibility doesn’t end there. You must enforce safety rules and ensure each worker on duty wears all the necessary PPEs to guarantee their safety in case of an accident.
6. Adhere To Important Safety Procedures
Adhering to safety regulations is essential for maintaining high safety standards in your manufacturing facility.
Therefore, you must ensure all your staff follows established safety guidelines each time they perform a task to ensure you accomplish your company’s safety objectives.
7. Encourage A Culture Of Safety In Your Manufacturing Company
Encouraging a safety culture where each worker across the rank feels obligated to act safely and encourages colleagues to do the same is critical.
One way to nurture a safety culture in your manufacturing company is by enlightening the significance of safety processes.
And the most effective way to do this is by adhering to safety guidelines by following them yourself. Moreover, you can nurture a safety culture by introducing safety incentive programs.
8. Hold Frequent Safety Meetings
Sometimes workers forget or ignore safety procedures not because they aren’t aware of them but because those procedures aren’t reinforced and reiterated.
Therefore, hold safety meetings regularly to reinforce and reiterate what was taught during safety training sessions.
You can hold weekly, biweekly, or monthly safety meetings where you can emphasize specific safety risks that occur often.
Final Word
There are many essential safety tips for the manufacturing sector that you can adopt to make your workplace safer for your employees.
You can start with the above eight and make safety progressive work to improve your manufacturing facility’s safety standards.
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