“Safety First!” – as cliché as it sounds and sometimes even said in humor, it is a very important statement. It is a deep conviction by the employees, managers, and owners of Keox Technologies, that NOBODY will get hurt or injured – employees, customers, vendors and anyone else. Although it’s a 24-hour constant task, one regular activity that we really apply our safety conviction to is during our system installs.
We typically deliver our systems to the customer and install it on-site, which is usually a factory environment. Keox would organize the timing with Production or, sometimes it is during a line build and construction is still going on. No matter the way, here are some of our policies and best practices when we get onsite:
Understand the site safety rules. First and foremost, understand what the safety rules are for the job site. Since different companies and different locations may have slightly different rules, it is up to Keox employees and representatives to understand and follow those rules.
Always wear the appropriate PPE (Personal Protection Equipment). We always show up on job sites with steel toes shoes. Sure it could be a little heavy, but with comfortable safety shoes there have never been a case where safety shoes are discouraged (maybe at airport security, but that’s another topic). Likewise for having appropriately fitted safety glasses. It is essential in knowing and wearing the correct glove type when handling chemicals. There are many more other PPEs such as respirators, aprons, hearing protection, cut-resistant gloves, etc.
Always perform Lock-Out Tag-Out (LOTO). This topic can be a whole class by itself in safety training. The concept is easy, but sometimes it’s not so obvious. Stored energy, in all its forms, can sometimes be missed, not aware of, etc. Again, know the equipment and environment real well before starting work and knowing WHEN, WHERE, and HOW to lock-out.
Always take Personnel Door next to Overhead Doors. This is an easy one to miss as it’s natural to just walk through the overhead door opening – it’s nice, wide, no worries – until the door comes down and somehow the sensors missed the person standing underneath to stop it. Overtime with habit, it’ll be second nature to use the Personnel Door when walking up to Overhead Doors.
See Something, Say Something! Of course we keep ourselves safe, but safety is for everyone. We sometimes see a situation where another person wasn’t doing things quite safely – usually they weren’t aware or maybe just got distracted. It happens even with ourselves sometimes. Don’t be shy in bringing it up (of course, don’t be an ass about it either).
Review Safety during daily “Team Huddles” and planning. Task coordination is usually the topic during these discussions, and safety should be a major part it of. Knowing what others are doing and through discussion could uncover unsafe situations – and thus can be avoided.
This is certainly not an exhaustive list, and we can go into a long discussion about safety, even just the aspect of System Installation. We haven’t even mentioned about safety design, lab safety, etc.
You have a safety tip or a case study to share? Email us!