Making safety just as important as the bottom line

Safety is a key focus for the industrial compressed-air solution manufacturer Champion Compressors, a subsidiary of the global Sullair Corporation. Its management considers keeping its workplace safe just as important as meeting its financial objectives.

Over time, the company has established various strategies that are crucial to fostering a culture of continuous improvement and safe working practices throughout its operations.

Safety at Champion Compressors is viewed from both internal and external perspectives. The company has an internal safety culture and carries that through to its clients. It begins with safety built into the local product design and manufacturing processes, and continues through safe work practices on the production floor and then on to installation, maintenance and customer training, to ensure its products are installed and operated safely in its customersÂ’ operations.

National Marketing Manager at Champion Compressors Michael Knowles expands on this culture: “Safety impacts all aspects of a companyÂ’s activities, from manufacturing processes, through to the delivered products, and on to equipment installation and maintenance.

“Historically viewed as an impediment to profitability, safety is now rightly considered to be a key performance indicator - every bit as important for a company as its bottom line. As with profitability, safety performance is a facet of a business where continuous improvement should be both sought and expected.

“Incorporating safety into standard work procedures and complementing it with training is the best way to create and sustain a culture where employees and customers instinctively think of their own safety as part of their routine work.

“Taking this concept a stage further, many jobs can be enhanced using electronic service devices to take the place of paper-based systems. The beauty of a system like this is that it can provide guidelines on how a task should be undertaken, and what possible hazards need to be considered. It then can automatically generate safety records for every job undertaken.”

Internal operating systems are often key vehicles for continuous improvement across all elements of a business - including safety. For example, Champion Compressors operates a system called ACE (Achieving Competitive Excellence), which has facilitated improvements in both business and safety performance across all processes. This includes operations both in house and off site, and has further enabled Champion to engineer advanced safety systems into its own product offerings.

Highlighting this approach is the productsÂ’ designs, which are shaped by the design engineersÂ’ attention to both safe operation and safe maintenance. For example, a compressorÂ’s inner workings are neatly contained in a hinged cabinet system. The fully enclosed nature of the compressors prevents access to mechanical hazards. When the cabinet doors are removed for maintenance, all compressors present key risk areas relating to moving parts such as the air compressor motor and the rotating shafts powering the air-cooling fan. Other dangers pertain to hoses, valves and joints that channel high-pressure air or fluids. ChampionÂ’s engineers have designed the compressors with fixed guards, where the possibility of entanglement in moving parts may exist, as well as pressure switches and safety valves in certain risk areas to avoid over-pressure situations.

The importance of nurturing the same safety culture for all employees and contractors - whether they are working in an office, a manufacturing facility, or conducting service work at a customer site - cannot be overstated. It is crucial that safety remains a paramount consideration for all employees, and this is reinforced by regular training to ensure workers know the safety procedures.

Every job needs to be preceded by a risk assessment and to encompass a safe work methods statement. Operators cannot work safely unless they are able to assess the work environments for potential hazards, and take appropriate action to mitigate the risks to both themselves and others. Champion operates a pre-work assessment program called SLAM - Stop, Look, Assess, Manage - which targets identification and correction of potential hazards.

“By implementing systems like these, and through constant vigilance, Champion has managed to go more than six years without incurring a single lost-time injury,” Knowles adds. “While weÂ’re proud of this achievement, the company doesnÂ’t allow itself to be complacent. Safety, after all, is a journey, not a destination.”