Safe & Sound All Year Round: 5 Smart Safety Practices
Author: Justin Malone, Field Safety Director, MINER
OSHA’s Safe + Sound Week is a perfect time to turn up the volume on prioritizing safety in every task. In manufacturing, distribution centers, or warehouse facilities, the ambient noise of operations may obscure safety risks requiring intervention. It’s a reminder that small steps to stay safe help in the moment and build better habits for the long run.
Whether you’re troubleshooting a power issue, working at heights, inspecting hydraulic systems, or anything else around your facility, safety is essential.
Let’s take a look at five key areas that deserve renewed focus and some commonsense tips on being safer, with an eye and ear toward applying safety in all aspects of what we do.
Working with an expert national service provider like MINER is a way to maximize proactive maintenance, putting a team of expertly trained technicians to work inspecting and caring for your most vital assets. More than just a once-over, eyeballing equipment or kicking the tires, proactive maintenance should run the comprehensive gamut that leaves practically nothing to chance.
For example, MINER’s SafeACT proactive maintenance program ensures you perform right-on-time maintenance, to tune up and optimize assets based on their age, condition and wear.
Taking a closer look, these categories of benefits from proactive maintenance really make a difference when implemented the right way:
1. Shockingly Simple: An Electrical Safety Mantra
The lessons from our parents when we were kids around delicate items and hot surfaces––DON’T TOUCH––are especially true as adults around electrical components and power sources.
Don’t touch, until you test, verify, and test again. It’s a mantra to think, say, and follow. And repeat. Think. Verify. Test.
Test your voltage meter on a known power source.
Verify zero energy on the equipment you’re servicing.
Test your meter again on the known source to confirm it’s operational.
This triple-check method is a critical shield between you and a potentially life-altering accident.
2. Hello, Up There: One Extra Minute Could Save Your Life
What goes up must come down. That’s not me saying that. That’s gravity. No getting around it.
Until we learn to fly, we rely on ladders, lifts, and platforms. And with that reliance comes the risk of falls too. Falls are among the most common workplace injuries. One main culprit? Overreaching.
Yep, we tend to overestimate our balance or how far our arms can reach. And as a result, talk ourselves out of safe habits.
Three points of contact? Two will be fine for just a couple seconds, right? You think?
It’s not so far. I can reach that. Are you sure?
Instead of trying to stretch beyond safe limits, take a minute to always reposition your ladder, lift, or platform. In the moment, that minute can feel too important to spend on anything other than the job at hand. But that extra 60 seconds of caution could mean the difference between finishing a job safely or a trip to the emergency room. Or worse. Be where your tools can’t reach. Safety is always worth the extra effort.
3. Door Safety: Open and Shut
That opening scene in “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” where the door slowly closes in on Indiana Jones and he escapes just in time? That’s exciting. And it’s no way to act around industrial doors.
Spring-loaded doors and mechanical closures require precision from those who work near them and maintain them. Failing to look to be sure a door is securely open or using alternative tools for a fix can be dangerous.
Be open to using proper tensioning bars: straight, correctly sized, and made for the specific spring. Different doors have different purposes. Different tools have their dedicated purpose too.
Shut down the use of worn or makeshift tools that can slip, snap, or fail under pressure. Don’t gamble or guess. Take a moment to inspect your tools before starting the job.
4. Always Be Careful: Leveler Safety
Leveler maintenance and fixes mean putting all or part of your body under the machine. (Again, gravity comes into play.) Fortunately, a manufacturer safety strut helps to keep things in place. But to be flat-out secure, remember your ABCs, and that redundancy saves lives.
Apply additional securement like an auxiliary strut or a truck crane, when available.
Build backups into your workflow because safety mechanisms should never be single points of failure.
Check that struts are locked and stable before entering the pit or working beneath the leveler.
Think of it like skydiving. You wouldn’t jump with just one parachute. Have a backup to be safe.
5. Hydraulic Help: Respect the Pressure
You shake a can of soda. Then open it. You just got a lesson in pressure.
Now magnify that considerably and you can imagine how high-pressure hydraulic systems can be deceptively dangerous, especially when searching for leaks.
It’s common on the job to get your hands dirty. But in this case, keep your hands off. Never use them to check for leaks. Instead, grab cardboard or wood to safely detect fluid movement.
The danger here is something you may not see, either. Even a small pinhole leak can result in a fluid injection injury, which requires urgent medical attention. Always treat hydraulic pressure with the respect it demands — and pass that lesson on to others.
Safe & Sound Starts with You
These reminders might seem routine. Obvious. Monotonous. But there’s safety in the mundane. And the impact of looking out for yourself and your team is anything but ordinary. During Safe & Sound Week — and every week — let’s pledge to:
- Slow down when needed
- Check, verify, and recheck
- Use every safeguard available
- Stay vigilant, lead by example, and never stop learning.
It’s better to think safety NOW so something doesn’t happen rather than to think of safety TOO LATE because something did. Your attention to detail could be the reason a coworker gets home safely tonight.
There’s more to consider, and all of us at MINER are here to help. We can evaluate your operation, check your factory safety procedures to find safety assurances and gaps. Schedule a SafeCHECK safety assessment today or explore the benefits of MinerCARE Safety & Service Programs.
Keep staying safe out there.