Get on Track with Your PPE Program

As a person responsible for employee safety, the challenges you face are great. Whether new to the role or an experienced safety professional, there is never a lack of things to do or problems to solve.

With all your responsibilities, the pandemic came along and wreaked more havoc on budgets, work schedules, and employee retention. The need to keep employees safe remains high, but resources to address hazards and injuries have become much more limited.

THE STATISTICS (FROM OSHA AND SAFETY PAYS)

• 15% of all injuries are hand injuries (one hand injury every 2 minutes), $46,000
• ​70% of all eye injuries are from objects striking the eye (one eye injury every 90 seconds), $160,000
• 65% of all eye injuries are from not wearing or wearing the wrong PPE for the task
• One burn injury for not wearing FR apparel during welding exceeds $99,000

Injuries are costly to the business and to the employee and can create regulatory attention. Costs include profits, recovery and healing, loss of production and quality, increased safety complaints and/or OSHA investigations, and loss of community reputation, to name a few.

THE PROBLEM

As successful as you are in your role, there likely are days when you just need a little help getting caught up and back to more meaningful tasks than simply putting out fires. You may need a bit more support to solve an on-going safety concern or finding the right PPE for an identified hazard. Perhaps you just need a second set of eyes to reveal hazards that have become “routine” in your facility. There is a resourceful and cost-effective solution available today.

TRACK – THE COST-EFFECTIVE SOLUTION

TRACK – Trial Research and Collaboration Kit – is a new service provided through a partnership with Mechanix Wear (your trusted and proven partner in personal protective equipment and safety solutions) and LineDrive® (the leading national industrial sales agency focused on worker safety and facility productivity). Here is how the service works and why you should consider using it.

TRACK provides you with experienced professionals who work with you at your site to help you solve safety concerns. As an external second set of eyes, the TRACK® team partners with you to observe, inspect, and review your safety practices and injury trends to provide real solutions.

The TRACK program offers a full evaluation of tasks and work areas with emphasis on injuries and trends with the greatest associated costs and yet with the greatest preventive/protective measures available: hand, eye, and FR apparel protection.

THE TRACK BENEFITS

As that second set of eyes, our team comes alongside and partners with you in your safety mission. As you can see, TRACK offers much more than just suggesting PPE improvements.

TRACK:

• Identifies OSHA-compliance challenges through risk assessments and PPE solutions
• Provides a document that serves as or complements your facility’s risk assessment
• Reveals hidden or routine hazards that add risk or cause injuries
• Provides generous, without cost, product samples for wear trials
• Simplifies and reduces PPE inventory
• Reduces waste in purchase spending and inventory by reducing and consolidating SKUs
• Assesses current PPE to the hazard(s) to ensure the right type of PPE is in use
• Provides site-specific (custom) implementation plans with training and ongoing support
• Reduces the number and severity of injuries, OSHA fines
• Improves/increases productivity, efficiency, and employee morale

Your time is valuable and rarely is there enough of it. The TRACK program helps restore time needed to address what really matters to you and your employees – their safety and quality of life.

WHAT TRACK OFFERS

TRACK provides a full-service site assessment, a full outcomes-based report with PPE recommendations, and they'll conduct product trials with free samples for your employees – real solutions to meet your specific needs. With all of this, TRACK gives you the industry-leading program that improves your safety, performance, and your budget.

HOW DOES TRACK BY MECHANIX WEAR WORK?

Their solutions-based team of experts works to identify hazards and avoid injuries with cost- and performance-saving opportunities. Scheduling an appointment with their team means they come onsite and conduct a detailed assessment to capture a deep understanding of your program, your practices, and your needs. They review your injury trends with a hazard analysis and observe employee tasks to establish industry-leading best practices with recommendations by job type for every task observed.

In addition, they can offer toolbox talks and create visual aids and boards customized for your facility that reinforces the glove, eye, and apparel selection that is best for each of your work areas and tasks. For facilities seeking ISO 45001 or in OSHA VPP, this assessment will meet and enhance the requirements for conducting and documenting your risk assessment, visual aids, and hazard postings.

Once the onsite assessment is complete and recommendations are discussed, they work with you to develop a unique, custom, and free-of-charge action plan that tests those solutions with your front-line people in their work environment, highlighting the benefits and solutions provided.

Each trial ends with a solutions-based report showing improvements made, comparisons of current costs with current products, and the expected ROI and productivity improvements.

They are not “consultants,” meaning they do not come onsite, stir the pot, and then leave you to pick up the pieces. The TRACK team continues to assist you in your ongoing success. Their R&D team works closely with you to design and implement site-specific engineering and long-term solutions for your people and your business that ultimately increases your competitive edge in the market.

TRACK RESULTS

The TRACK program offers so much more than a walkthrough or another PPE purchase option. When using TRACK services, you and your team will experience and gain:

• A detailed review of each work area with product and best practices recommendations and data
• Performance metrics and goals that enhance safety and productivity
• Full Return on Investment (ROI) calculations with hard numbers and current comparisons
• An injury-cost calculator and projected savings through implementing recommendations
• Charting of current PPE expenditures and anticipated savings through value-added products
• Productivity increase reporting

VALUE, NOT JUST PRICE-POINT

Anyone can swap your PPE with lower-priced (often lower quality) products. If it is not the correct PPE, it can cost you in many ways. You need to base your PPE program on value, not just price. Here are two real-world examples of how selecting the right PPE the first time is worth more than product price.

An employer with 600 employees provided low-end safety eyewear for employees. It met the compliance requirements but was made of hard plastic – uncomfortable, poor, sometimes painful fit, and was not valued by the employees. The eyewear was required to be worn in production areas and was often replaced with a new pair multiple times during a shift.

New eyewear was introduced with an initial cost 5x the price of the current selection. The new glasses were comfortable, flexible to fit different facial shapes, polycarbonate (high impact) lenses, silicone-tipped bows, and came with a quality anti-fog coating.

Employees loved the fit of the new eyewear and commented on the superior quality. They were now wearing the same pair of issued eyewear for weeks at a time. The initial investment was significantly higher to replace the cheap, uncomfortable eyewear but at the end of the trial period, employees were pleased with the selection, comfort, and fit of the glasses and the company documented a cost savings of more than $30,000 in the first six months by making the switch to a value-added PPE item.

Another example was an employer purchasing N95 respirators to use for nuisance dust. Though providing a higher level of protection than was necessary, there were multiple compliance, training, and health issues identified in addition to the increased cost of respirators that weren’t needed. The distributor simply sold the safety coordinator the product he asked for, without question.

The TRACK team can help you identify savings while recommending a change in PPE that your employees may appreciate, wear, and in so doing, lower your risks of injury and your costs.

HOW DO I GET STARTED WITH TRACK®?

Getting started is simple and requires no obligation. Visit this page and complete the online registration. When you do, you begin a journey with a partner committed to your safety success. The team will assess your current challenges, provide solutions based on your specific needs and conditions, then support you with generous samples for trialing with your employees along with all of the services and benefits discussed above.

WILL TRACK WORK WITHIN MY INDUSTRY?

The TRACK team conducts assessments in all types of industries, such as: industrial, food & beverage, pulp & paper, warehousing, oil and gas, utilities, mining, power generation, and commercial construction. They can’t list every industry so if you’re not in this list, contact the team here and complete the form to get started.

NO HESITATION REQUIRED

Contact the TRACK team today and get on track by joining an elite group of companies who have switched to TRACK and now benefit from TRACK and its safety and performance services. You now have an option to take control of your safety and your costs by simply clicking the link. You can make a difference in the lives of your employees and in the outcomes of your business. Reap the benefits of improved safety, improved performance, improved incident rates, improved competitive edge, and improved community relations.

Previously Featured on Mechanix Wear's blog.