Improving workplace safety requires a sustained effort and commitment from management. The customer needed someone who could earn and maintain the trust of operators, supervisors and union leadership through open and impartial investigations of all incidents, as well as advance the company’s workplace safety goals.

IET’s Safety Investigator worked on many fronts. He investigated injury incidents, documented the findings, conducted 5-way analyses and then worked with supervisors to correct and prevent the safety concerns. Using a records database, he was able to track similar injuries across the plant for trends that could signal the effectiveness of preventive countermeasures. During routine walk-throughs, IET’s Safety Investigator continually watched for unsafe practices in areas such as lockout/tagout, fall safety, machine guarding and powered industrial vehicle operation to emphasize adherence to safe operating practices. He conducted formal safety audits, safe equipment design reviews, driver’s license testing, supervisor incident report training, and monthly plant safety reports. The cumulative result of these efforts was a decrease in the number of recordable incidents every month since the project began.