At Smiths Medical, safety starts with the associates.
The management team understands that safety is achieved through associate engagement, and works to involve production workers in the process.
Line workers run daily safety huddles and hold weekly safety and 6S inspections on the production lines. Even site safety committees are led and managed by front line associates.
"We believe that safety starts with our associates and providing a workplace that is injury free will then translate into the design and production and distribution of safe and efficacious medical devices," says Tim McGraw, vice president of global EHS, security and facilities for Smiths Medical.
The company's Safety Performance System provides self-directed work teams with the education and skills needed to take ownership of safety.
And through the company's Leading Indicator Program, workers conduct safety inspections, recognize their peers for safe acts, coach their peers after seeing unsafe acts and suggest ways to improve unsafe conditions.
The Leading Indicator Program functions with six core activities: hazard identification, safety recognition, safe and unsafe acts observations and feedback, leadership safety tours, associate engagement events and a corporate safety video from the president and CEO.
Safety is considered as much a part of daily operations as any other aspect of business.
"SM does not make a business case for safety. SM views working safely as a given, much the same as it is a given we will work with only the highest integrity and ethics," McGraw says.
Smiths Medical
Plymouth, Minn.
7,300 employees/ 16 EHS professionals
Medical device manufacturer