Plastic Parts Manufacturer Pride Solutions Celebrates 4 Year Safety Milestone
Updated: May 2
Pride Solutions recently celebrated four years without a lost time incident and two years without a recordable incident – major milestones for any manufacturer, and a proud accomplishment for our growing Hutchinson, Minnesota contract manufacturing business.
“Protect” is our Number One Core Value at Pride Solutions. We are totally committed to the safety of our employees, customers and vendors, and this commitment is reflected in our impressive safety record.
As a contract plastic parts manufacturer offering compression molding, plastic fabrication and B2B assembly services, we could not have achieved these milestones without total commitment from all of our employees and management team. We go beyond the required annual AWAIR (A Workplace Accident and Injury Reduction Program) and ERTK (Employee Right to Know) training, covering a different safety topic at each of our monthly employee meetings, and we reward important safety milestones with gifts for all employees. During weekly management meetings, our plant manager gives an update on our safety score and provides updates on any new safety initiatives.
During the current coronavirus crisis, Pride Solutions swiftly took steps to protect the health of our employees, customers and vendors. As an essential business providing products and services to numerous key industries, including agriculture, transportation and defense, it is imperative that our employees stay healthy so we can continue to support our customers during this time of crisis. We need to stay open for business so farmers can get crops planted and harvested and truckers can get food and medical supplies to where they are needed. We are doing everything we can to keep the supply chain moving.
When President Trump declared a national emergency, we immediately suspended any outside visits into our building, assigned special overtime disinfecting duties to two employee volunteers, and made disinfecting wipes and hand sanitizer readily available to all employees. We reduced the potential to spread coronavirus by having all of our
office employees work from home following Governor Walz’s Stay at Home Order, and have made paid sick time available to employees so they do not have to use their ETO hours or lose income. Employees have been instructed to not come into work sick. Even before the pandemic, Pride Solutions encouraged all of its employees to get annual flu shots, rewarding them with restaurant gift cards.
“As a small company, we are like family and at the end of the day we want everyone to go home healthy and in one piece,” said our President Jack Daggett at a recent all-employee meeting. “You only get two eyes and 10 fingers and you can’t grow new ones, so it’s important we all stay safe.”
Maintaining a solid safety record is critical for manufacturers for numerous reasons, Daggett explained. First and foremost, no one wants to see anyone suffer an injury, death or related hardship. Secondly, there is no better testimony to a manufacturer’s commitment to quality than a stellar safety record. And lastly, safe companies are rewarded with lower insurance premiums – a savings they can pass along to customers and employees alike.
Pride Solutions Plant Manager Ben Wick noted that Pride Solutions’ safety record is extraordinary compared to industry incidence rates. U.S. employers reported 1.6 lost time incidents and 2.8 recordable incidents per 100 employees in 2018, according to the National Safety Council (NSC). See https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/work/industry-incidence-rates/work-related-incident-rate-trends/.
“In manufacturing, everyone must be vigilant about safety,” Wick said. “You cannot let your guard down for one second, because that split second, that one slip up, is all it takes for a tragic accident.”
The economic impact of preventable workplace injuries is substantial. According to the NSC, workplace injuries in the United States cost $170.8 billion is 2018. The cost per medically consulted injury was $41,000 and the cost per death was nearly $1.2 million. In 2018, Americans lost 103 million days due to workplace injuries that year, including 33 million lost days due to injuries from prior years. See https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/work/costs/work-injury-costs/ for more details.
“We’re staying safe because everyone is doing their part,” Daggett said. “It gets extremely busy here especially during the harvest, and all of our employees always keep safety top of mind, whether its forklift safety, promptly cleaning up slip hazards, wearing safety glasses, and now more than ever, washing our hands and staying home when we are sick. We all look out for each other and it shows.”
How We Stay Safe at Pride Solutions
1. All employees are required to attend annual AWAIR (A Workplace Accident and Injury Reduction Program) and ERTK (Employee Right to Know) training. We work with a safety consultant firm (GMG Environsafe) to ensure that best safety practices and procedures are in place. They also perform a quarterly onsite safety audit.
2. A safety topic is covered at every monthly employee meeting.
3. A safety reminder is given at every weekly manager meeting.
4. Production employees are required to participate in annual vision and hearing screenings.
5. Forklift operators attend annual safety training and certification.
6. Employees driving commercial vehicles are required to maintain DOT certification and medical cards.
7. Customer credit card information is not kept on file.
8. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), fire extinguishers, first aid supplies and eye wash stations are readily available and employees know where to access them.
9. Safety Data Sheets are kept up to date and accessible.
10. Employees are encouraged to report any safety concerns and to alert each other if they notice an unsafe activity.
11. Preventing the spread of Covid-19 is top of mind. Employees are reminded to regularly wash their hands and not touch their faces; hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes are readily available and employees have been assigned daily disinfecting duties. Office employees disinfect their workstations daily. Outside unexpected visitors are currently not allowed in the building.
12. We celebrate safety milestones, rewarding employees for their efforts to keep Pride safe.
13. Employees are required to wear badges; restricted areas are only accessible to authorized staff.
14. Required government safety postings are posted.
15. Employees with e-mail access on their cellphones have a strict passcode requirement.
16. Product installation videos and instructions lead off with safety reminders.
17. Remote monitoring of equipment is used during “lights out” operation.
18. Video monitoring is used inside and outside of the building.
Need a Plastic Parts Manufacturer? Contact Pride Solutions for Your Next Compression Molding, Plastic Fabrication or B2B Product Assembly Project
320-587-0760