Vigilance, training key to a safe workplace

SAFETY FIRST: Thomas Blackinton, facilities and safety manager, checks in with Jean Bock, assembly worker, at AstroNova in West Warwick. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY
SAFETY FIRST: Thomas Blackinton, facilities and safety manager, checks in with Jean Bock, assembly worker, at AstroNova in West Warwick. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY

When companies of any size experience significant growth, there are always bumps in the road. For West Warwick’s AstroNova, formerly known as Astro-Med Inc., one of those bumps came in the form of employee accident reports.

“For years and years the company had a lot of long-tenure employees, and as we started to grow and hire new employees, we started to see some spikes in claims, in incidents,” said Matt Cook, vice president of human resources. “Looking back on it, we say we’ve had a very good safety record historically, but that was largely because of long-tenured employees.”

The company employs 332 people, about 270 of them in Rhode Island, and CEO Gregory Woods recently said the company is hiring about a dozen more people. The company’s expansion also led to three production shifts for the first time in its 47-year history, beginning late last year.

Cook said the company, which manufactures technology for products serving industrial, packaging, aerospace and defense markets, realized that to grow, changes needed to be made.

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“We have to evolve,” Cook said, “to have standard processes.”

Company leaders, all the way up to the CEO, looked at how to improve the safety of employees. Cook developed a health and safety steering committee; members include Woods and Chief Financial Officer Joseph O’Connell. Cook said it was important that the company lead by example. At the plant level, they developed a safety committee to report to the steering committee.

They set the bar high. They didn’t just seek to reduce incidents and claims, but eliminate them. Cook said the company previously looked at incidents that happened, determining why they happened and then how they can be prevented from happening again. But the new focus became keeping an eye out for potential hazards, with each person taking accountability for fixing them. The new system includes employee involvement, management accountability, root-cause analysis and preventive planning.

For example, if a line worker sees something that’s a hazard, it’s his responsibility to fix it if he can. If he can’t, then he notifies a supervisor who will try to fix the problem. It continues on that way from the bottom up until the problem is solved.

“Rather than saying it’s someone else’s responsibility, it’s seeing something and empowering those employees to take action immediately,” Cook said.

He said employees have reacted positively to the changes.

“Part of it is that people can simply focus on doing their jobs,” Cook said. “[There’s a] feeling of knowing the company cares; it’s a safe place.”

In their first year, the new processes had a significant impact on incidents and claims. Recordable incidents dropped to four in 2015, from a two-year average of nine. Lost days of work fell by 34 percent to 180 days, down from a two-year average of 274, and restricted-duty days plummeted 48 percent to 29 percent, from a two-year average of 56.

“What we had the biggest impact on are some slips and falls and those types of hazards that could cause someone to be out of work, or at least get medical treatment,” Cook said. He said AstroNova focused on personal protective equipment, cleanliness in the work spaces and better layout in warehouse operations. Now, the company is focusing on how ergonomics can prevent injury and eliminate potential dangers.

Cook is happy with the results of the first year, but stressed the need to keep making adjustments and reinforcing changes. And while zero incidents is ambitious, it’s certainly not outside the realm of possibility for Cook.

“I’ve seen organizations go years with zero incidents,” he said. “So it’s very achievable. Sometimes the challenge is when you’ve gone a long time with zero, how do you keep up the awareness or the alertness. People kind of get complacent and think we can never have an injury again, and something happens. So getting up the mountain is probably the easier part. I think we can get there this year.” •

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