America's Safest Companies: Rogers Corp. – Advanced Circuit Materials Division

MOPS make the difference at Rogers Corp. Advanced Circuit Material Division. Not the kind you use to clean the floors, but a program called "Management Program Owners for Safety" (MOPS).

"We've seen that management support is more than approving funds and attending meetings," says Brian Alexander, CSP, CIH, CAS, regional ACMD safety and health manager. "We wanted to make it more action oriented."

The company created a new program to improve management commitment and provide each major location of the Rogers, Conn.-based company with additional management active support. With MOPS, managers who normally are not associated with the location are safety owners. 

Alexander said these managers are required to go out once a week during different shifts and discuss and review safety with the employees. All managers are trained and coached by the safety manager. 

"This program has produced tremendous positive results throughout our campuses," he says. "The MOPS teams have helped identify and solve lockout/tagout, fall, cuts, fires, contractor safety, storage and many other safety concerns." 

During these MOPS safety walkthroughs, managers discuss safety with employees, review safety concerns and give feedback on safety. Since its inception, the program has identified and mitigated 200 safety hazards.

"Organizations often write page-long vision statements, carefully crafting every word, having untold meetings and countless hours reviewing, editing and discussing. After all that, do they really think people on the production floor are going to live it, let alone remember it?" asks Alexander. "Our Rogers philosophy on safety is very simple: ‘Make it easy to be safe.'" 

Rogers stands out because of a commitment "to getting everybody meaningfully involved in safety. I mean meaningful, not just activity based," says Alexander. "Bottom line, safety needs to change; from old school compliance systems to value-added structures that create a global competitive advantage to all of our customers."