At the Quality Blow Molding (QBM) plant in Elyria, Ohio, an employee was seriously harmed while attempting to fix a jam in one of the company’s plastic molding machines on his first day of work. The 21 year old, whose name was not released by OSHA, lost four fingers on one hand and received serious burns.
OSHA cited QBM for several violations. Some of were classified as “willful,” and others as “repeated” or non-serious categories. The company, which produces plastics items in its 24,000 square foot factory, initially failed to report this incident to OSHA. It now faces over $170,000 in fines.
To prevent calamities like this, companies must provide and enforce training protocols. New workers are required to be fully supervised according to current OSHA standards, so they are not left alone to make mistakes such as this unfortunate employee’s. Young workers are statistically the most likely to have accidents resulting in illness or injury. Therefore, they require additional attention.
Had QBM implemented safety software, this injury might never have happened. A good safety software includes training modules to help the company understand their duties as employers, in addition to providing information on best practices in unsafe conditions. Quantum’s Incident Reporting, Investigation, & Corrective Action Module in tandem with Quantum’s Training Module provide a centralized platform to easily track safety activity within an organization. Companies should look to software solutions such as this to help them avoid serious incidents.
Injuries should be a company’s main concern, but the resultant fines are also taxing. QBM failed to report this specific injury, so they received a higher penalty than they may have otherwise. The OSHA report of the injury also detailed earlier incidents that were directly caused by the company’s negligence. Organizations that do not make every effort to enforce safety regulations end up causing serious harm to their employees and, as seen in this example, receive appropriate punishment from OSHA.
