Using Machine Safety to Improve the Results of Your EHS Program

Most organizations use two fundamental metrics to measure the success of their environmental health and safety (EHS) program: regulatory compliance and reduced incident rates. While these certainly are valid and important performance indicators, they only measure past results. Moreover, the organization's primary focus is on avoiding negative consequences rather than striving for greater performance by improving safety, productivity, competitiveness, sustainability and overall profitability.

That's not surprising, considering industry historically has viewed safety practices as punitive actions or compliance activities rather than as opportunities to deliver value or gain a competitive edge.

It also is becoming easier to understand why safety should be considered a sustainable business imperative, much like product quality, since a single significant failure dramatically can change customer and investor perceptions of your brand.

Increasingly, company stakeholders are realizing that automation technology, including machine safety equipment, can deliver positive, business-enhancing benefits for EHS programs while mitigating risks and reducing costs.

Machine risk mitigation has a recognized hierarchy:

• Eliminate the risk — Design the hazard out to reduce unnecessary motion and exposure.

• Physical barriers — If the hazard cannot be designed out, install fixed guarding to provide a barrier to the hazard and reduce exposure.

• Monitored access — If a physical barrier cannot be installed, then monitor access to the hazard to prevent unsafe conditions from occurring.

• Personal protective equipment (PPE) — If exposure to unsafe conditions cannot be prevented, then personnel must be protected from injury.

• Training and procedures — If personnel cannot be protected from exposure and potential injury, then administrative controls regarding work procedures must be in place to minimize the potential for injury.

EHS professionals often initiate hazard assessments to look for potential points of exposure beyond the administrative controls. For best results, EHS staff should partner with others in the organization or with third-party machine safety specialists to implement solutions that best address the identified hazards.

In many cases, the application of automation technologies improves organizational behavior and serves as a bridge to other practices to help boost productivity, increase efficiency and improve overall safety, sustainability and business performance. This includes financial returns, such as from improved manufacturing output, energy savings and reduced waste, beyond the benefits of reducing costs associated with accidents, medical expenses and regulatory noncompliance.

Recent research shows that manufacturers with mature, executive-endorsed EHS programs see benefits that go well beyond compliance, according to Matthew Littlefield, senior research analyst at Aberdeen Group. The analyst group surveyed nearly 200 organizations and found on average, these organizations enjoy a 4 percent higher OEE, a 71 percent lower injury frequency rate and 50 percent larger reduction in energy use.

“Clearly, these organizations see EHS as a strategic enabler of operational improvement and support these programs with automated and integrated tools that enable more than just compliance management, but also risk management, performance visibility, analytics and reporting,” Littlefield said.

OUTDATED PRACTICES

At the plant floor level, many of today's assembly and machine operating stations employ technology and safety practices that focus more on reaction than anticipation. In worst cases, some applications were developed with a blind eye toward safety — relying only on the operator and maintenance technician to be alert to hazards. Others were deployed as an afterthought — in response to an accident or new industry standards.