Safety & The Ethanol Plant

IBT Safety's Tom Smith, Director of Consulting and Training, speaking at the FEW (Fuel Ethanol Workshop) in Milwaukee, discussed Improving The Performance Of The Part Time Safety Manager.

An OSHA Authorized Trainer with extensive experience in a wide variety of facilities and industries, Smith presently provides safety consulting services to five up and running ethanol plants. Services through IBT Safety include site hazard assessments, program development, safety training, audiometric testing and respirator fit testing.

In his talk, Smith focused on the goal of the safety manager: developing, implementing and maintaining an effective safety and health program that protects all employees without compromising production efficiencies.

The job is one of those, Smith reports, that is easier said than done. In the real world of ethanol, workplace conditions can be challenging, people come and go, OSHA has extensive hoops to jump through, people are hard-working but not necessarily careful - and, to top it all off, the safety management job is only one of the hats that the person tasked with safety must wear.

In short, it seems that, sometimes, safety problems appear beyond solution. Nevertheless, maintaining a safe work environment is a never-ending battle. The trick, Smith notes, is to invest energy wisely and make the most of limited resources: money, time, people.

What is required to win is a combination is self discipline and organization. These are learned skills, but applying them allows for managing the important issues.

How a manager spends the day determines how well he or she manages the job.

Some tricks and tips:

• Write a "do list" and use it
• Refer to it and work from it
• Include short term and long term objectives
• Understand that part of the day must be scheduled
• Plan on having part of the day given over to fighting alligators
• Reserve part of the day for looking into the future
• Be prepared to accept the fact that on some days the "to do" list doesn't mean a thing
• Especially: Don't get frustrated when it doesn't work
• And then.GET UP AND DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN THE NEXT DAY!!!