Calling all Manufacturing Companies!!

LFernandes

Hi Everyone,

Here is the background: We are a chemical company who handles raw materials in pails and 55 gallon drums. Our QA Inspectors are required to take samples as part of their routine job duties. Recently, we've seen an increase in workplace incidents and during our investigation found that they are performing material handling i.e.; moving drums, etc.

The Manager for that department says that is what everyone else in the industry does. We [HR] says that they shouldn't be performing these tasks.

Who is right? The Manager or HR? How do your QA Inspectors take samples. Your input (as well as any SOP's) would be greatly appreciated as we want to change the way samples are taken so as to remove the possibility of workplace injuries.

Thanks!!!

LFernandes, NY

Sunny

We don't take liquid samples but the QC person at one of our plants is not licensed to operate a forklift so receiving brings his samples to his lab or he checks them on site. I believe that employees who handle "hazardous" materials with forklifts need specialized training. If the chemicals are non-hazardous they still need forklift licenses. If they are not "certified" according to OSHA they shouldn't be on a forklift period.

You might want to check the OSHA site and see if your employees are required to be specially trained to handle your specific chemicals. In any case, increased accidents surely would indicate that there's a problem with the way things are being done now.

Good luck.

Don D

There is no such thing as an OSHA certified or licensed forklift operator. The certificates or cards employers issue have one practical value and that is the pride inherent in posessing a document issued by the employer. Some employers snatch or recover the paper/license/certification when employees violate safety policies. That is largely the chief value of the document...having it snatched, causing some degree of emotional pain.

Sunny

Don: Sorry to disagree with you - although it's true OSHA doesn't certify, the standard requires that all forklift drivers be trained and certified according to their rule. My answer yesterday was sloppily phrased and I apologize if I misled.

We do the training (both written and practical)using a modified NSC program, and publish a list of those "certified" to drive. Our former corporate safety director used to issue actual certificates but I don't have time. You're right about the licenses - we don't issue them as documents but we have been asked to prove that our drivers are licensed in the sense of being properly trained. It is definitely a violation to let an untrained employee drive your forklifts and you'd better have the training documented somehow if OSHA comes calling.

Don D

As I mentioned in my prior post, "There is no such thing as an OSHA certified or licensed forklift operator". OSHA regulations require employers to provide pre-operation training in equipment operation. OSHA does not certify; therefore, there is no such thing as an OSHA certification. Employers are not required to 'certify' or 'license', only properly train and keep training records on file. Employers who choose to issue cards, licenses, tags, buttons or certificates, do so at their own will. The point of my response is to clarify that all these safety managers and personnel managers who mention "OSHA Certification" and ask "Are you OSHA certified to operate a lift truck?", are perhaps well-intentioned, but inaccurate. x:-)

LFernandes

Hi - I should have been a little clearer...sorry... The person was actually trying to physically move the drum without a drum handler (not a forklift). We have certified forklift drivers but the drum was alledgely hanging off the edge of the pallet.

Sorry for the confusion.

LFernandes

Don D

Sorry we got off track with the OSHA discussion. So, what's your question?....whether or not the QA guy should be moving the drum or should he just be taking samples from the drum where it sits? I'm not sure what the issue is. If he can do the job without moving the drum, seems he should be instructed to do just that and not expose himself to injury by trying to manhandle the drum. He was trying to maneuver the drum back onto the pallet and was violating your safety practices for drum handling, he should be appropriately disciplined.

LFernandes

Thanks Don. Yes, he was trying to physically move the drum back onto the pallet.

While HR/Safety states that this individual should not be performing the job of moving drums, the Manager states that QA inspectors are expected to.

So the question is:

Who is correct... HR or the Manager. That was why I was asking other manufacturers if they require their QA Inspector to handle drums. If that is the case, then we should be providing them with the proper training.

Hope this helps...

LFernandes

SMace

What does HR/Safety want them to do? Call someone else over to move the drum back on the pallet? Someone has to do it. This sounds like an example of HR/safety without a clue as to what is going on in the manufacturing area. The manager needs the job done and I can understand his/her reaction.

Teach the proper lifting techniques and stress that if something is too heavy to lift, get help. The manager should be behind that. If somone gets hurt they are worse off than if the QA person slows down and asks for help.

LFernandes

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 02-24-04 AT 12:12PM (CST)[/font][br][br]<<What does HR/Safety want them to do? Call someone else over to move the drum back on the pallet? >>

To answer your question...YES!!...UNLESS it is part of their routine job duties which is why I am trying to find out if other manufacturing companies have their QA Inspectors moving drums. AND... should that be the case, it will be written in as part of the job description that they must be able to lift up to 100 pounds on a routine basis. Right now, the job description has them lifting 10. Which is a Big difference.

LFernandes

SMace

Be careful what you write into the job description. Pushing a 100 lb. barrel back onto a pallet is not the equivalent of lifting 100 lbs. 100 lbs. is a lot to lift and I bet you have people in that job that cannot "lift" 100 lbs. Your initial post sounding overly complicated to me and I do not like when HR gets in the way of ee's doing their job. But, you are right that it is important to have an accurate physical requirement of a person's job. If our QA person needed to get a drum back on the pallet, they would either do it their self or ask a co-worker for help. I would not be inclined to write that responsibility into someone else's job description.

LFernandes

The problem was that the employee injuried himself doing it and is now out on WC which is why the issue came up in the first place. If it should be part of his normal duties - fine, so be it. But if not, then he shouldn't have attempted it and injuried himself.

Don D

In addition to HR, I also have the safety program at a manufacturing facility. Among a million other things, our quality inspectors have the responsibility to sample liquid from drums. If one of our quality people found a drum in a precarious or wrong position on a pallet, and I were aware of it, I would tell him to notify either the worker whose responsibility it was or the shift supervisor to put the drum in its proper place on the pallet. I would not want QA people taking up the slack for the operator who mis-positioned the drum.

So, to me, it's not a question of what the QA inspector's job description should be. It's a question of whether you hold the workforce accountable, and part of the accountability is positioning a full 55 gallon drum properly on a work surface or pallet. The same would hold true if a pallet were in a walking path. Or if a box of finished goods happened to be out of place. Hold people accountable. Yo momma don't work here!

LFernandes

Thank you Don!!! xhugs

AluminumBoy

OK, this is just painful.

If we could harness the amount of energy that has gone into this exchange, we could move a 550 lb barrell.

We keep our job descriptions as vague as possible. Most of our facilities only list physical requirements for an area with listing specific duties. Why? Everyone is expected to do whatever it takes to get the job done. All people in a department have the same physical requirements so everyone can do each others work without question as to physical ability or ADA crap.

When we see something wrong, we fix it. We would never question a job description. I would tell your QA people to learn the proper technique. I'd do as Don said and hold your material handlers accountable. And I'd certainly stop questioning, "Who is right?" Everybody should take Nike's advice and just do it.

If I were in charge of safety at that facility, I would walk out on the floor and begin straightening barrels to immediately show people how to do it.

I hate to create any tie to SMACE, but I will. Good comments on HR's role. Please, just do it.

LFernandes

just don't get hurt because then I'll start to question why so it doesn't happen again.... and that's MY job.... x}>

E Wart

Well put... if a person sees something wrong, it should be second nature to fix it without analyzing it, thinking how it got like this and is it my job. (Trash on the ground, pick it up.) I would hope that the QA person had enough good sense to know 1) if he isn't trained in the correct way to do something, don't do it until trained or gets someone t show them the correct way, but call it to someone's attention 2) if they feel as if it is too much to handle by oneself, call someone over to help you.
E Wart

Don D

So, LFernandez, we see that both Alumboy and Wart subscribe to the theory of "Yo momma do work here". Management response to problems is what teaches employees to do what they do next.

Employees who see managers and others coming along tidying up their messes and covering their mistakes will soon adopt the notion that "I'm not going to be held accountable. My momma gonna straighten this mess up for me". Safety in a manufacturing facility nudges bottom line profit for the number one position.

Where I work, we insist on and demand safe practices and we write up and terminate employees for safety violations. What we do not do is walk around behind people cleaning up their oil slicks, turning off their towmotors, straightening their misplaced drums, teaching them that others will cover for their breaches and preaching the 'everybody's responsible for it' philosophy. I can either straighten the barrel for the unsafe worker who left it there, or I can put a string of yellow tape around it, go get his supervisor and let him handle the writeup. If it saves a comp accident, the 15 minutes spent on it is worth gold!

Where accountability can't be assigned and traced to the lowest common denominator, nobody is held accountable. And where there's no accountability there's no safety discipline in place. And barrels are leaning off pallets. Call it Safety/OSHA Crap if you like. The cost of Workers' Compensation premiums, accident costs and OSHA fines demand a pretty damned high level of attention. Sorry, just a different take on the subject. Readers can choose whichever best fits their company culture.

AluminumBoy

Don, why must we make things so difficult.

I said Just Do It and hold people accountable. The original poster seemed to understand this.

Do we have to go down this long and bumpy road of listing all of the obvious...wc, OSHA fines, etc...blah blah blah...all so obvious.

Get rid of work distinctions as much as possible. When you do this, its amazing how well employees hold each other accountable. Ands when they don't, immediately hold them accountable.