Leaning Toward Safety

Source: Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada - 2012. The AWCBC provides these numbers as general information only and recommends contacting individual workers’ compensation boards/commissions for specific or additional information and clarification.

Investing time, energy, and money in a lean program may seem counterproductive to small-shop management. After all, the few employees know exactly what they are doing, how to do it, and don't have time to attend process improvement meetings, reorganize tooling, or grab a broom. But shops of all sizes are finding that lean practices improve safety metrics, and these improvements contribute directly to an improved bottom line.

According to the Association of Workers' Compensation Boards of Canada (AWCBC), an injured employee may be granted up to 90 percent of his earnings in workers' compensation benefits depending on province legislation. Newfoundland and Labrador cap those benefits at $52,885; Alberta at $86,700. Maximum compensation earnings in other provinces fall between those amounts with the exception of Manitoba where, AWCBC reports, there is no limit.

When lost productivity, hiring or retraining another employee to cover the job, and even the possibility of losing a customer because of a missed delivery are added to the potential workers' compensation outlay, the costs of a work-related injury can easily cripple the finances and productivity of a small company. The potential for waste and loss caused by unsafe working conditions makes a strong case for investing in lean management.

Lost-time Incidents Equals Waste

Safety is an integral part of the lean process that originated with Toyota in the 1950s to improve productivity through waste reduction. Waste elimination itself, involving actions such as reducing unnecessary movement and improving physical work flow, positively affects safety, but when you consider lost-time incidents as a form of waste, safety comes out of its own category and lands squarely in the middle of the lean management mix.

"If you think of lean, say, look at the 5S and Six Sigma systems, a key practice is good housekeeping. Things are organized. Everything has a spot and is well-maintained, nothing is blocked, and lighting is good. These practices reduce waste and have a lot of linkages to safety," said Joe Solly, senior manager in sustainability practice at Toronto Deloitte, Toronto. "Waste in all its forms costs money for any size company. Smaller companies are probably more prone to ignore safety concerns because entrepreneurial types often convince themselves that they already know and practice everything they need."

Michael D. Lawrence, principal consultant and founder of Summit Safety Technologies, Long Beach, Calif., agrees. "In lean terminology, poor safety in the company is just another form of waste. It needs to be eliminated. Injuries are costly not only in terms of human suffering, but in high employee turnover and lost profits. A typical small business loses over $6,000 a year by not having an effective safety management system." Lawrence estimates that for every $1 spent on safety, between $4 and $6 is saved in direct and indirect costs that would be incurred by an on-the-job injury.

Create a Team, Start Easy

A wealth of organizations and consultants are available to help a shop achieve a lean, safe environment, but small companies can take steps to implement lean safety on their own.

Lawrence said that the first step is to establish a safety team. Familiarize the team with the concepts and steps involved in lean management and why the practice is worth the effort. Task cross-functional team members with applying lean practices to an area or process that they select. Steps in a lean project include:

1. Establishing goals and measures that lead to accountability and drive improvement.
2. Organizing and arranging areas.
3. Training and empowering staff.
4. Problem solving and proactive failure analysis.
5. Getting everyone involved.
6. Creating smooth and consistent processes that work in unison.

"Start with a simple project to get people thinking about doing things differently, more efficiently, and more cost-effectively, but understanding the risks at the same time," Solly said. "For example, make sure the facility and the workplace are very well-organized. Things should be identified and have their own locations. Or establish and maintain a schedule for equipment with prescribed maintenance procedures. Or look for hazards caused by material flow and forklift routes that could hurt someone."

Regular meetings should be held at least once a month to evaluate progress against a defined and documented list of target conditions.

Focus on Waste Areas

Gary Conner, principal of Lean Enterprise Training, Newport, Ore., and author of Lean Manufacturing for the Small Shop, said, "Always work on eliminating waste in the seven fundamental waste areas. Increased safety will follow. For the fundamental areas think TIMWOOD—Transportation, Inventory, Motion, Waiting, Overproduction, Overprocessing, and Defects. In the old days of batch manufacturing and departmentalization, it was easy to hide problems; not so in a cellular manufacturing environment."

A key element in a lean safety program is total employee involvement. Communicate goals and successes and encourage safety vigilance, suggestions, and involvement from all employees, not just team members, according to Conner.

"Any initiative, including lean, requires people to see the WIFM [What's in it for me?]," Conner said. "A focus on safety is not generally as high a priority or motivator as money, but a lack of safety will show up quickly in the form of low morale, injury, and eventually company costs that will impact employees' personal finances. Show interest in safety, not just productivity, by asking employees about safety improvement ideas. It will foster an environment where ideas for other improvement generation can flourish."

"Keep all of your employees engaged in safety planning and practices. Some statistics say that longtime employees are a high-risk population," Solly said. "They get too comfortable with their job and workplace and relax their safety standards or become easily distracted. Involve them in safety planning."

Maintain, Measure, Improve

"You have to sustain your lean safety practices. What affects businesses is change that brings opportunity and risk. When you have to change a portion of your processes, lean thinking drives you to identify opportunities to reduce waste and standardize new procedures. Then more opportunity comes and provides new materials or technologies or different volumes, and you change the way you do things again," said Solly. "With each change, lean management will force the team to rethink safety and make needed changes at the front end."

The lean experts advise management to measure safety progress continually. Metrics can drive performance toward more efficient use of resources, improved compliance and profitability, and improved employee health and well-being. Measurement provides the information shops need to direct process changes and improvements and to verify improvement.

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