Don’t wait for a tragedy to make safety your plant’s #1 priority

“Worker dies at California frozen burrito plant”

This recent headline in Food Manufacturing magazine caught our attention.

As we read further, we learned that the worker was trapped and killed when a processing machine inadvertently activated during cleaning. Fellow employees were unable to turn off the machine.

This article stopped us in our tracks. The poor family. The trauma for the other employees who witnessed this. Where was their lock-out/tag-out program?

Not an isolated incident

Unfortunately, workplace injuries are not uncommon in food & beverage manufacturing plants. According to OSHA, the 6,987 food & beverage manufacturing plants in the U.S. reported the following injury statistics in 2024:

• ~45,000 total injuries (6.4 per facility)
• 45% of these injuries were severe enough that they required days away from work or placing the employees on restricted duty
• ~1.1 million aggregate days away from work or restricted duty
• And worst of all, 28 deaths

Take a moment to digest this data:

• 1 out of every 35 food & beverage manufacturing employees is injured at work each year (~45k injuries across ~1.6mn production employees).
• The average injury results in the injured employee missing 24 days of work – i.e., these typically aren’t papercuts.
• Again, worst of all, more than 2 deaths a month!

Saphineia’s newest team member

Spurred by this article, we concluded that we must do more to help our client-base appreciate the importance of a strong employee safety program. To that end, we’re proud to announce that Dennis Averill has joined Saphineia as Sr. Director of Safety, Health and Environment (“SHE”).

Dennis joins Saphineia after a distinguished 40-year career at leading food, consumer product and industrial manufacturers, including Unilever, Kimberly-Clark, SC Johnson and L3Harris, where he held senior global and regional roles overseeing SHE.

Dennis’ accomplishments in the SHE area include:

• 25% improvement in OEE and an 80% reduction in accidents as Unilever’s Corporate Group Manager for TPM and SHE
• As global safety and environmental hygiene leader for Kimberly-Clark, achieved the lowest incident rates in company history
• Led L3Harris to a 50% reduction in accidents and the lowest incident rate in company history

Dennis also brings substantial expertise and thought leadership in Lean manufacturing, Quality Management Systems and Total Productive Manufacturing

Dennis is a Certified Safety Professional, Certified Industrial Hygienist, Certified TPM Instructor and Six Sigma Green Belt; Dennis also authored the Singo Award winning book “Lean Sustainability”.

Dennis’s 5 tips to jump start your safety program

As his first ‘assignment’, we asked Dennis to recommend steps organizations can take to prevent fatalities and injuries related to exposure to hazardous energy.

1. Identify Hazardous Energy: Systematically identify all types of machine hazardous energy (electrical, mechanical, pneumatic, hydraulic, chemical, thermal, gravitational…) and provide a means for shutting off the hazardous energy.
2. Develop Hazardous Energy Control (HEC) Procedures: Develop written machine and task specific HEC or Lockout/Tagout (LOTO) procedures.
3. Establish a Site HEC / LOTO Program: Develop, implement and enforce an effective tagout program when workers are exposed to hazardous energy while servicing and maintaining equipment and machinery.
4. Establish Alternative Controls to LOTO: When tasks are routine, repetitive, and integral to the operation of equipment, develop written procedures outlining the alternative controls to LOTO that will be used to control hazardous energy and protect machine operators.
5. Conduct HEC / LOTO Training & Inspection: Provide effective, documented HEC / LOTO training to all authorized and affected employees. Inspect or audit HEC / LOTO procedures at least annually to ensure that they are being implemented properly.

Lockout/tagout (LOTO) procedures are essential safety measures used to ensure that dangerous equipment is properly shut off and not able to be started up again prior to the completion of maintenance or repair work. These procedures require that hazardous energy sources be “isolated and rendered inoperative” before work is started on the equipment in question. The isolated power sources are then locked and a tag is placed on the lock identifying the worker and reason the LOTO is placed on it. The worker then holds the key for the lock, ensuring that only that worker can remove the lock and start the equipment. This prevents accidental startup of equipment while it is in a hazardous state or while a worker is in direct contact with it. Occupational Safety & Health Administration

Among manufacturing practitioners, it is well understood that safety is strongly correlated with plant efficiency. This is also widely recognized in empirically. As just one example, a 2023 study published on Science Direct states, “Our findings provide strong support for the premise that companies with policies aimed at improving employee health and safety, employee training, or having safety management systems positively influence safety performance, which in turn has a positive impact on financial performance.”