Safety
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Philosophy of Constant Cleaning in a Factory
- November 20, 2019
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Management, Productivity, Safety
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A friend was recently telling me about when he worked in a restaurant. When there were only a few customers, his manager used to say, “If there’s time to lean, there’s time to clean,” which is something I’ve heard myself over the years. It’s an important sentiment in some situations, like waiting tables at a
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What are Some Common Safety Issues in Manufacturing?
- December 26, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Manufacturing, Safety
For the most part, safety is usually a function of paying attention to your surroundings and avoiding situations that can cause you a problem, like failing to wear your personal protective equipment, or running across a hydraulic-powered conveyor line. These safety violations fall more on the “benign” end of the spectrum, where people didn’t mean
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An Unusual Approach to Manufacturing Safety
- December 19, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Manufacturing, Safety
In a typical manufacturing operation, safety policies are always the responsibility for management to create and for the associates to follow. But I thought that was always backwards: management didn’t have to worry about safety, since they weren’t actually operating the machinery, and the associates knew better about what would actually work and what was
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The Time There Was Nearly a Knife Fight on My Factory Floor
- November 7, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Management, Safety
You run into all kinds of problems when you’re managing a factory and running a business. I’ve had to fire people for sleeping on the job. I locked my own son out of a meeting for being late. And I once had to talk a naked guy down out of the rafters. So it shouldn’t
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Four Strategies for Reducing Workplace Injuries
- September 12, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Management, Manufacturing, Safety
When you run a manufacturing facility, one of your biggest concerns could/should/will always be workplace injury. Manufacturing, with all of its moving parts and massive machines, are a risky place to work. And you can talk about safety all you want, but that doesn’t mean your workers will necessarily be safer. When I was at
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The Cost of Environmental Infractions is High, Can Include Jail Time
- December 3, 2017
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Management, Safety
Manufacturers who contaminate, pollute, and commit environmental infractions as part of their manufacturing process aren’t only risking a guilty conscience or the shouts and disparagement of environmental activists. If your manufacturing company is found to be committing environmental infractions, you run the risk of being sent to jail as well. For years, I worked closely
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Four Steps I Took to Lower Our Workers Comp Costs
- September 20, 2017
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Management, Safety
Workers Compensation is the bane of most employers, a much-hated tax they have to pay in order to support workers who get injured on the job. And the opportunities for fraud are so prevalent that just mentioning the phrase “Workers Comp” is enough to make any executive see red. But I managed to reduce our
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Workers Affected By Safety Rules Should be the Ones Creating Safety Rules
- September 13, 2017
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Safety
Last week, I talked about the importance of having a disaster recovery plan, including offsite data backup storage, while I was at Robroy. We updated our plan every year, exercised our tornado and fire drills at least twice a year (so the emergency lighting could be double-checked and replaced). We even had people certified in
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Do You Have a Disaster Plan for Your Manufacturing Company?
- September 6, 2017
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Management, Manufacturing, Safety
With Hurricane Harvey passing just a couple hours southeast of me, and Hurricane Irma hitting Florida, I have been wondering what businesses in the affected area have done to protect their data and information from disaster. I’ve heard stories of businesses that have had to shut down because they lost their financial and client data
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How We Managed a Factory Fire in Texas While I was in Dubai
- April 5, 2017
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Management, Safety
Always hire good people. If there’s a problem, they’ll take care of it. Several years ago, I was in Dubai on a business trip, and I had just gone to bed. It was 10:30 pm local time, an 8 hour difference between me and our factory in Texas. The phone rang and jolted me awake.