January 4, 2023

Safety First. Always?

A review of our focus on hand safety and a look ahead to 2023.

In 2022, we talked a lot about hand safety. Our hands are a tool we use every day to help us get things done. Whether we’re inspecting parts, operating a machine or typing on a keyboard, we need our hands to help us get our jobs done.


Are you doing everything you can to keep yourself (and your hands) free from injury?

To address ways to protect these valuable assets, we began the year with a video message from our CEO, Rick Marabito, and a testimonial from Kevin Sorenson, a Machinist at the CTI Owatonna, MN division, who suffered a hand injury, after over 20 years of being injury-free. After a Safety Stand Down in February, every other month, we featured a new hand safety topic:


As part of the solution, let’s do what we can to keep our hands, fingers and thumbs in good working order: use care when completing every task, be aware of your surroundings and always wear your personal protective equipment.


Safety Action Plan Progress


Several years ago, five basic Safety Action Plan requirements were established. Three more items were added in the last two years to complete the 8 Required Safety Action Plan goals for all divisions in 2022. In 2023, we’ll continue to work on maintaining these baseline practices – with a few adjustments to get even more members of our teams involved. (More to come on that soon!)


  1. Create a Safety Committee and meet monthly.
  2. Create/review/update all Job Safety Analyses (JSAs).
  3. Create/review/update all Lock-Out/Tag-Out (LOTO) policies and machine-specific procedures.
  4. Complete all required Safety training.
  5. Conduct weekly (at a minimum) Safety/5S/housekeeping walks.
  6. Complete a dock safety or traffic safety improvement project.
  7. Complete poka yoke safety improvement activities at least once per quarter.
  8. Document near miss events at least once each month.


It’s exciting to see the progress we’ve made in each of the eight areas. Establishing daily routines with these goals in mind will help us achieve the Safety-First culture we’re aiming for. And it’ll take participation from all employees, at all levels and all job functions, to help us reach our goals.


To help all employees get involved and focused on always putting safety first, there are some fun things planned for 2023. First, a Risk Identification Contest for all employees that will also raise money for our ongoing Working for Wishes partnership with the Make-A-Wish Foundation. And, in June, we’re planning a lot of big things for National Safety Month. Stay tuned for all the details!


Gathering Data in 2023


It takes a continuous, unified effort to establish and sustain a Safety culture of learning and growth. During 1Q2023, you’ll have a chance to participate in a company-wide Safety survey that will help us benchmark our safety efforts. We’ll use this data to help us identify where we need to focus our efforts immediately and into the future. Thank you, in advance, for your support and participation in this project. Stay tuned locally for more information about the survey or reach out to Tony Dominic, Director – Safety, Health and Environment, with questions.


Safety First. Always. And, it starts with me.


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