Industrial Safety Supply

Dan Madden
President Texas Safety Supply

The First steps in identifying which industrial safety supply products are needed at your facility always begins with an assessment of current facility work place conditions as well as the current work processes and procedures. At Texas Safety Supply our approach in identifying what is needed in an Industrial Safety Supply Audit begins with a Safety 'walk through.' Before determining what Industrial Safety Supply items may be needed by that facility, we always start with taking a look at the current state of affairs and begin to group injury prevention plans into two "Buckets". Then we continue to systematically review and develop processes and introduce Safety products that will prevent work place injuries. Our goal is to break down injury prevention into two categories, then develop corrective action planes based upon the initial walk through.

The Two Injury Prevention Buckets

1. Unsafe Conditions
2. Unsafe Acts

Unsafe Conditions versus Unsafe Actions

Unsafe Work Conditions

Unsafe Conditions are facility and work 'environment' related and can be identified and corrected to prevent injuries caused by an unsafe work place condition. One would think with the proper desire, motivation ( and maybe an OSHA visit ) that unsafe Conditions should be Easily identified and corrected. Corrective action may not happen overnight, but with a little persistence and the proper attitude and some elbow grease, you can fix this. Unsafe actions, well that might be a bit harder to correct. It takes 'buy in' from everyone in the building, top to bottom. Everyone has to get on board and make a commitment to break old bad habits. Bad habits that may have been a habit for twenty years. An unsafe work habit that might have been ok yesterday, but now it's not. Safety Leaders, difference makers, have to be willing to step up and address conditions and actions at all times. This safe outlook has to be ingrained and interwoven to how we approach our jobs and key process Measures. Productivity, Efficiency, Error ratios all go hand in hand with a Trained, safe front line work force. A facility cannot operate at it's peak, if two of the best players have a cast on. Just ask Lebron James about Kevin Love and Kyrie. A company may have a great goal and a great product, but if you lose key players then the company is now in jeopardy.

Unsafe Actions

Unsafe Acts are 'actions' that are done by employees, managers, Vice Presidents and must be corrected by a consistent proper safe work training process. A safe work training process for Supervisors and Managers as well as front line employees with the proper Industrial Safety Supply products and safety supplies for the duties and tasks that unique to your facility, your environment, your 'work world'. Unsafe acts must be addressed by all. A front line employee should have every right to question a District Manager if she jumped off the dock without going down the ladder and ask that she does not do that again. One employee pointing something out to another employee that they are doing something unsafe should not result in that employee being upset. After all a reckless employee that does not work safe, jepordizes every person that works around them as their unsafe actions may impact them. All any of us want is to go home at the end of the day and see our daughter, our wife or go to your Son's basketball game. So no one should take offense when it's an "All In" approach. All in and everybody goes home safe to loved ones.

Taking this two tiered approach to reducing injuries, addressing conditions and actions, can bring a clear focus to where the safety hazards are in your work place, what Industrial Safety Supply products are needed at your facility.

Identify unsafe conditions and unsafe actions, and then use this new found safety knowledge for the design of your overall injury prevention process before you think about beginning a scheduled Industrial Safety Supply ordering process. Eliminate Unsafe Conditions First, then go to work on unsafe actions and setting up your Industrial Safety Supply. Ordering Industrial Safety Supply products wont fix an Injury problem. A Bigger, all in approach has got to the one and only acceptable result.

Industrial Safety Supply Site Inspection

Now, take a walk through your facility with a pair "fresh eyes". A pair of big Safety eyeglasses and Eyeballs on to see what's really going on. Take a step back and have a look. A fresh look to look at the work place environment. Does it look safe? Your Goal in this process is not to look at what do I need to go buy for my industrial safety supply, right now the goal is to simply look for workplace hazards that could cause an injury. Get the Big Picture. Do not look at what people are doing and how they are doing it. Look at the conditions, the work place environment. What needs to be done from a Ownership and Management standpoint to eliminate hazards that can cause injury. ?

• Is trash picked up and disposed of?
• Are there locations that have oil spills that has not been cleaned up with proper safety supplies?
• Are exits clearly marked?
• Are boxes, tools, not in their proper place?
• Can you easily identify where Fire Extinguishers are located? Proper signage is required and one can check the OSHA site to determine what safety signage is required at your facility.
• What about maintenance? Check overhead doors, rollers, are there problems.
• Equipment, are Forklifts properly maintained and inspected each shift as required by OSHA that they are properly maintained.
• Check the Forklift Logs.

Industrial Safety Supply Checklist

Lastly, talk to people. What do they employees say about what is broken. At times employees just stop reporting safety issues because they get the impression that supervisors and managers don't care. Do not take the easy way out here though. If Supervisors and Managers dont care about unsafe work conditions it may be due Directors and Owners and Regional Managers not expressing the same safety concerns to them. Do all the conversations begin and end with productivity and efficiency goals. If everyone took a complete review of the cost of an injury, then perhaps those discussions would begin with work place safety and whether or not the facility has the correct Industrial Safety Supply products available for injury prevention.

Purchase Industrial Safety Supply Products

After you have completed your walk through identifying unsafe work conditions. Go back to a quiet place, an office to gather your thoughts about developing a Facility Safety Checklist. This should be a list of the safety issues unique to your workplace. Signage, Maintenance on Production equipment, a Review of Forklift safety Logs. All the items that you identified in your walk through as possible unsafe work conditions that May cause an injury. Once you have this completed, this could evolve as you dig deeper and identify other work place hazards. Again, this part of the process is to identify unsafe work conditions. Once this has been done, you can now begin to identify the Industrial Safety Supply products that will be needed at your facility. Perhaps there is not spill absorbent readily available to absorb slippery spills, Proper lighting. Whatever it is you now begin to take a whack at each unsafe work condition and bring in the appropriate Industrial Safety Supply product to address and eliminate that unsafe work condition.

Further information regarding Industrial safety supplies and using the OSHA 300 Log for injury prevention, please review Industrial Safety Supply and the OSHA 300 Log.

For a discussion of Issuing Discipline for failure to follow Safe Work Rules.

For info on involving all stakeholders in an organizations Injury Prevention Plan through an Appreciative Inquiry for a Unique positive Results approach.

For Purchasing Industrial safety Supplies and Contacts please review Industrial Safety Supply for Wholesale safety product pricing.