Manufacturing and Safety

Manufacturing SafetyIn recent years, manufacturing has gone through its roller coaster moments with companies going overseas, coming back, outsourcing, manufacturing in-house; it’s forever a changing environment. Over the past couple years, we have been seeing more manufacturing come back to the states, and so many manufacturing companies have added more employees to meet the manufacturing demand. According to FabricatingandMetalworking.com [1], nearly 570,000 manufacturing jobs have been added in the last four years due to the growth of manufacturing. As more employees are added to the workforce, the more injuries and work-related accidents occur.

Although there are organizations like OSHA who create and enforce safety regulations, it’s really up to the manufacturers to reinforce their safety policies and continue to provide ongoing safety training to their employees. It’s important to keep employees focused and educated on the various dangers within a manufacturing facility. If employees are only trained at the time of hire, they can easily become complacent, careless, or simply forget. Continual safety awareness not only keeps the information fresh in employees minds, but also emphasizes the importance of safety in the workplace. It’s also important for employers to keep up-to-date on the safety laws and regulations since they evolve frequently. In addition to maintaining updated Material Safety Data Sheets based upon the different materials and chemicals that are within the manufacturing facility.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics [2],  reported nearly 800,000 injuries and nonfatal work related accidents in 2012. As more employees are being hired due to the rise of manufacturing work, these numbers will only increase if companies do not take the proper precaution to train and educate their employees. Although it takes time away from actually fabricating jobs, it is an important investment to educate employees in the long run. Injuries and accidents are very costly, so taking the time to train employees is crucial to the success of a manufacturer’s operation and to the safety of all employees.

Here at Vista Industrial Products, Inc., we have over 150 employees, so it is very important to us to make sure all of our employees are fully aware of any possible dangers within our facility, and to also make them aware of safety in general. Not only do we provide safety training upon hiring, we also maintain continual training and safety classes to keep everyone fresh and up-to-date on different safety topics that pertain to our business. By providing knowledge to our employees, we are making it a safe environment for everyone.

Stay tuned for next week’s blog post!

[1] Corriveau, Scott. (Apr. 23, 2014). Manufacturing Should Refocus Worker Safety. Retreived from http://fabricatingandmetalworking.com.

[2] Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor. Employer-Reported Workplace Injuries and Illnesses News Release. 2012. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/osh.pdf.

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