Industrial Safety Supplies

Dan Madden
President Texas Safety Supply

After completing an Initial Safety Walk through as discussed in last weeks safety blog, safety leaders are a step closer to identifying the correct Industrial Safety Supplies that are needed to provide the correct PPE protection to employees at your facility.

What's next?

Well, before spending a penny on industrial safety supplies we need to take a few more steps to identify what the correct solution is. If you jump to what you think the solution is for Industrial Safety Supplies without further review and analysis there may be a whole lot of wasted expenditures for your future Industrial Safety Supplies.

OSHA 300 Log Review

If you have completed an "initial safety walk through" , then a good next step is to find the OSHA 300 Injury Log.OSHA 300 Injury Log

OSHA 300 Log Analysis

The OSHA 300 is a required document that is to be maintained by employers as required by OSHA regulation 29 CFR 1904. Employers are required to prepare and maintain a record of serious occupational injuries and illnesses and note them appropriately on the Facility OSHA 300 log in a timely manner. This document will be one of the fist documents that OSHA would request of Managers on a Facility visit. The explanation at the Top of the OSHA 300 is clear that any medical treatment beyond first aid must be reported on the OSHA 300 Injury Log. So anything beyond First aid becomes what is commonly referred to as a "Reportable on the Job Injury."

A review of the OSHA 300 log can be a solid piece of evidence in the puzzle in your overall Industrial Safety Supplies and injury prevention plan. It is very Important that those in control and responsible for reporting injuries on the OSHA 300 log take this responsibility very seriously and complete the OSHA log accurately with appropriate levels of details. OSHA Fines can result for failing to properly complete the OSHA 300 log, or heaven forbid, to not complete it at all. The columns on the OSHA 300 log can help shine a light on what is needed for Industrial Safety Supplies.

OSHA 300 Log Column B

Begin with Column B, Job Title. Ok, what are the Job titles of the employees that have sustained a Reportable Job Injury?  A few minutes of review you and you may notice that there is a predominant amount of injuries happening with one Job Title, may be two. If you facility has 3% of the personnel working in the Receiving Department, yet the Receiving Department has 25% of the Injuries, you have to ask yourself what's going on here? A Bit of focused effort in the right areas may results in huge injury prevention reductions. Begin to address these issues, but let's not leave it there. Industrial Safety Supplies and Injury prevention are much more than a quick review and jump to solutions.

Identifying Injury Trends

Identifying OSHA 300 Injury trends

If you do see work area trends, this does not mean the employees are more careless in these work areas, but maybe it does. More investigation is needed. Perhaps the supervisor does not make work place safety a priority and ensure that all employees are wearing the appropriate Industrial safety supplies that they are supposed to be while on duty. Perhaps they have more exposure because of current work methods. Go talk to people, maybe new hires are sent to work in this area without having the proper safe worker training before being assigned to the work area. What issues should be addressed from a Facility safety management standpoint? In your OSHA analysis you may be able to break it down even further, is it happening at a certain time of day? Are injuries occurring on a weekend shift where safety enforcement may not be as strongly enforced.

OSHA 300 Log Column D

Move on to Column D of the OSHA 300 log, the Date of the Injury. Again, breaking down workplace injuries further and working towards injury prevention, lets take a look at Column D to see what we can find our with a bit of a fact finding mission. What is the Date of the Injury, and what is the Day of the week of the Injury. Then with a quick review of a Calendar, Safety Managers can plot what

Industrial Safety Supply injury analysis

days of the week have a Higher injury occurrence. Is it at the end of the week and perhaps insufficient quantities of Industrial Safety Supplies are on hand to Finish the week in a safe Manner. That obviously should never happen. Texas Safety Supply has sophisticated measurement process to ensure replenishment orders of Industrial Safety Supplies are in place when needed. It is really unacceptable to have an injury that happens because a lack of adequate PPE stock and adequate Industrial Safety Supplies available for employees. Plotting the days that injuries occur and knowing the higher frequencies days can be a good part of your plan. If more injuries are happening on Friday, let's have a Safety Meeting every Friday to get people engaged in Safety for the Day. A little bit of extra emphasis on injury prone days. Put an end to 'horse play on Fridays". Maybe once in a great while a Pizza Lunch for Meeting a string of Injury Free days as a reward. I do not think this is an every week reward, because then it's meaningless. Additionally, that is the employee's job, to work safe. Employees if provided with the proper training, industrial safety supplies, safe work rules, work place injuries should be a shocking anomaly to everyone else that works at the facility. Everyone, if properly trained, should understand why an injury happened without delay, and understand what should have been done to prevent the injury from happening. Then learn from it so that the type of work place injury does not occur again.

OSHA 300 Log Coumn E

Column E of the OSHA 300 log, where did the event occur? This is important, really important. In injury analysis in the work place the first priority is to always get the person the appropriate medical treatment. Get that handled first, but then it's time for some investigation and fact finding to prevent future injuries. The first step if the person is able, is

Industrial Safety Supply Stock Room

let's return to the accident scene. What happened. A bit of "Joe Friday" action here, "just the facts Maam." This is where you want to see, who, what where and why. What was going on that caused this injury to occur. Any witnesses? Have them right a statement for you as to what they say happen. Is it Physically possible for the injury to have occurred as the employee stated? Ask them to show you what happened so that you have a clear understanding on what you as a safety leader needs to do to prevent it. Ask questions, were your gloves on? does everything add up here? Take a minute to get the "Big Picture" again. You can perform a better injury analysis and have better prevention plans when post injury analysis includes pictures, statements and diagrams.

Going back to the OSHA 300 Log then, as the Safety Leader or Safety Director for a Facility or a company a location that is entered as "warehouse", "dock", " at Job site" on the OSHA 300 log are totally and completely unacceptable. Make the one completing the OSHA 300 Log to be specific. i.e. Door 32 Overhead door, Isle 7, Row B. Be specific. What are you gonna tell the OSHA investigator, "The Dock" , on the "Job". I am not thinking that will go over very well. Specifics

OSHA 300 Log Column F

Next Column, Row F on the OSHA 300 log. Describe the Injury or illness or Parts of the Body affected. Obviously, there is room for only three to four words on the OSHA 300 log. Further explanation must be included on a separate, full and complete injury investigation report. But a review if completed properly can give the Big Picture Reviewer of what happened when the injury took place.

Industrial Safety Supplies, the impact of OSHA 300 Log

So pull it all together now.

What our our injury trends and what role do our Industrial Safety Supplies play in the solution?

Industrial safety supplies and having the right product for the job or task will always be one piece of the plan, but not the entire solution for In an injury prevention plan. You can buy the best industrial safety supplies, industrial safety supplies in Bulk, wholesale safety supplies, discount industrial safety supplies, cheap industrial safety supplies, industrial safety supplies online,  but they may not be the right products that you are spending your safety dollars.

Safety Managers must look at the injuries on the OSHA 300 Log and analyze what products are needed to prevent injuries. It 's possible that your employees are using a plain cotton glove because you are attempting to keep costs in line. If hand injuries are your biggest injury area, perhaps reviewing Cut Resistant Gloves and making cut proof gloves required for all employees could possibly reduce 80% of your hand injuries. When you add up the cost for one injury which OSHA stats reports is approaching $20,000 for any injury, how much did you really save by not providing the proper hand protection?

There are no short cuts in anything.

Path to Safety

Kind of like Mr Goodwrench, you can pay me now, or you can pay me later.

I suggest no shortcuts, protect your people, use the tools and that knowledge that you have at your disposal in reviewing your facility for potential safety hazards, and review the OSHA 300 log for Past injuries, and then do the right thing as the Leader and give people the right products and the right training to keep them safe at your work place. It's your duty, your obligation. Help your people, train them, give them the proper protection, and hold them and their Supervisors accountable to use the proper safe work techniques at all times.

Lastly, create an atmosphere of accountability where everyone holds everyone accountable and everybody is ok with it. All employees have a responsibility to the Team to work safe every day.

That way all of us move forward and everyone goes home safe to friends and loved ones.