NCMEP PARTNER HELPS BRICK MANUFACTURER ACHIEVE SAFETY MILESTONES

The first step was to contact NC State’s Industry Expansion Solutions (IES), the administrator for the North Carolina Manufacturing Extension Partnership and part of the MEP National Network™. Brown, an NC State graduate himself, knew of the organization’s environmental, health and safety services and capabilities.

IES got to work and performed a safety assessment on each of the company’s manufacturing sites, providing a gap analysis on what was working and what areas needed improvement. Additionally, some employees participated in interviews with IES to discuss safety challenges and offer their own ideas for improvement. The employee engagement aspect of the safety improvement program was very successful.

“The data from the gap analysis and feedback from our employees left no question about where work was needed and became the basis for our safety program improvement plan,” said Brown. In addition, IES helped craft a list of action items to work on. Brown, the CFO, the head of manufacturing and the head of each manufacturing plant met weekly for over a year to check progress, make necessary adjustments and ensure work efforts were delivering the intended results.

In the process, Triangle Brick has learned that these safety investments have paid for themselves, time and again over the past few years with fewer recordable incidents. “And most importantly,” Brown said, “The program is effective because everyone in the company—the CEO, the CFO, plant managers, supervisors and employees—now takes a personal interest in our safety culture and accident prevention. The strong expression of employee ownership of the updated program is tremendous and it shows.”