5 Safety Items Your Manufacturing Business Should Have

During my time in manufacturing, I managed a variety of operations and departments. In each of my positions, I did what I could to ensure employees returned home after work in the same physical condition as they arrived.

As a manufacturer, you value your employees and want to provide a safe work environment for them. You follow OSHA and industry regulations, and you may even go above best practices or what is required by law.

You and your team try to seek out hazards and potential problems to guard against accidents. You provide required personal protective equipment (PPE) and ongoing safety training. You address issues that come up quickly and diligently.

You might even go a step further and have a safety committee that monitors the facility, processes, and machinery and also provides training to your staff. You post safety matrixes within your plant and hold weekly safety toolbox talks. Your goal is to eliminate or reduce the likelihood of an accident.

When I visit companies with all this in place, unfortunately, sometimes I’m still faced with a glaring and obvious example of a lack of safety commitment. When I’m about to  walk onto the production floor, no one hands me any PPE. When I ask for it, I’m told not to worry about it. I insist and point out that their signage clearly states that safety glasses and hearing protection is required beyond this point. I use the opportunity to talk about safety culture. By allowing me to be the exception, they show their employees that safety rules are arbitrary. A good safety culture does not allow for exceptions.  

I recommend you call you safety supplier today and get some PPE on hand to protect your visitors, vendors, manufacturer’s representatives, contractors or any other person who is a guest in your facility. Below is a short list of things you should have on hand:

• Spare safety glasses including the type that go on top of prescription eye wear
• Over-the-shoe or clip-on steel toes protection.

• Disposable earplugs or washable earmuffs.
• Hairnets
• Protective coats/clothing is contamination is a risk

Its also a great idea to ask all visitors to read and sign off on your safety policies.  They need to understand where they are allowed to be and where they shouldn’t go, what do to in an emergency and who to notify when they leave the premise. Ideally, you should have a member of your staff stay with your guests while on the production floor.

Remember, visitor safety is just as important as employee safety and critical to building your safety culture.