When it comes to engineering, employee safety should always be the top priority. Often, working in engineering can be risky because employees will likely be operating heavy machinery, working with specialist equipment or engaging in meticulous planning for the rest of the team. The risk is higher and therefore health and safety should be at the forefront for those in the business.
Tips to improve health and safety in engineering
Assess the risks
One of the easiest ways to improve health and safety in engineering is assessing the risks that your manufacturing facility poses to its employees. A risk assessment allows you to take a birds eye view of the risks associated with working.
An assessment may include the machinery that needs to be operated, or the workstations that your employees work with. By assessing the potential risks that may be caused, you are able to put a plan in place to reduce them.
Investigate the legal requirements
It is important to take into account the legal requirements needed for your employees to carry out their work. Working in engineering can pose certain risks, especially if they need to use specialised equipment.
Some legal requirements may be overlooked when you set up your manufacturing facility, so it’s good to do a refresher to ensure all your employees are complying to them.
For example it may be a legal requirement for an employee to wear protection when carrying out certain work. However, this can easily lapse if not enforced regularly. You can find more information on the legal requirements on the government website.
Plan with your team
Often it can be difficult to understand what your employees need to feel safe without directly asking them. Work together with your employees, to understand what they require. For the day, why not plan in a team session in advance to ensure their needs are being met?
Whatsmore, lots of engineering businesses will likely want to put contingency plans in place or offer special insurance for their employees, so they feel safe at work. They may even want to propose certain training. This can be really beneficial and create an ecosystem of health and safety compliance within your engineering business
Appoint somebody to spearhead health and safety for your employees
Health and safety compliance and regulation can take up a lot of time and can be costly if it goes wrong. That’s why it might be important to consider appointing a specific team member who can help with this. Beyond this, you may be able to outsource health and safety management from an external company.
How a full service offering can help you run a safer engineering business
Did you know that with a full service offering you can run a safer engineering business? Taking into consideration the points above, you can easily streamline your engineering facilities process to increase safety.
One way to improve safety is with a mezzanine floor. They come with many benefits, but largely they can help you increase space in your engineering facility. This is important for safety because working in larger, more open spaces is often considered safer. This is because there is less likely to be obstacles or obstructions caused by overcrowding or cluttered work space.
Whatsmore, by organising your facility with a mezzanine floor, those who are trained to be near and work with specialised equipment can work without interruption. Helping them stay clear of those that don’t. For example, you could use a mezzanine floor to keep those working in office roles safe.
A mezzanine floor can also help save your business money, which can free up more overhead to be used on health and safety practice and training.
As part of a full service offering from Alfa you can also implement conveyor systems in your engineering facility. These conveyors are great for health and safety because they can carry very large weight loads and reduce the need for manual work and heavy lifting.
Health and safety at Alfa Industrial
Health and safety is our number one priority at Alfa Industrial. We ensure to constantly improve our safety measures and make sure our specialists are always up to date with new procedures and legislation. We have built a business that runs seamlessly safe operations and our processes are industry approved.
We also have NEBOSH Qualified Safety Management Personnel, all of our Project Managers are IOSH Managing Safely trained and every member of our team has achieved CITB Safety Certification as a minimum.
Find out more about our health and safety accreditations here
Let Alfa Industrial help with a safe full service offering
Our full service offering can help improve the health and safety in your engineering facility. Why not reach out to us to learn more about our engineering services?
When it comes to specialist equipment and new components in your engineering facility such as mezzanine floors and conveyor systems, Alfa Industrial gives you the opportunity to grow safely.
All of our installation team are expertly trained so that we can implement the new process collaboratively, making sure that it complies with government regulations and those in your facility. Contact our team of expert installers for more information and to get a quote on how we can help improve health and safety at your engineering facility.
