Friday, December 21, 2012

White Tape on Cords 1/1/13 - 3/31/13!

Good afternoon to all I.D.I. employees:  We begin a new quarter on Tuesday, 1/1/13 for our Assured Grounding Program.  The Safety Coordinators will be supplied with white tape from your Superintendents. Just a reminder that we need for you are to inspect, test and color-code with white tape all 3 pronged electrical tools and extension cords.  All electrical tools and cords need to be visually inspected.  If you see any defects in the cords such as bare wires, severe kinks, missing or damaged ground prong, the cord pulling away from the plug end housing, etc., then that tool or cord would need to be immediately removed from service and reported to your lead supervisor.  If your tool/cord passes the visual inspection, your next step is to test the cord with a receptacle tester.  First, you should test the outlet that you will be plugging your cord into to ensure that it is properly wired.  You should see 2 yellow lights lit up on your tester and the red light should be off.  This means the outlet is working appropriately.  Next, plug your cord into the outlet and then test the cord with the receptacle tester.  Again, you should see the same light pattern as mentioned above and this would mean the cord passed the test and it is good and safe to use.  Any other light pattern means that there is a problem with the cord and the cord needs to be removed from service and reported to your lead supervisor.  If the cord passes the visual inspection and the cord tester test, you should then remove the previous quarter's orange electrical tape and install the white electrical tape about 1" down from both plug ends.  Your cord is now in compliance with our 1st quarter's Assured Ground Program.  The white tape shall remain in place from 1/1/13 through 3/31/13.  You are not quite done yet!  You now need to visually inspect all electrical cords and tools on a daily basis and if any defects are found, the cord needs to be immediately removed from service.  Thank you for taking the time to ensure your electrical tools and cords are in safe working order.  Your actions may prevent one of our family members from sustaining an electrical shock type injury or worse yet and electrocution.  If you have any questions regarding our Assured Grounding Program, please call our Safety Director, Peter Graham, at (847) 417-1689.

Have a Safe Day!

Monday, December 17, 2012

How is the Housekeeping at Your Job Site?

Good afternoon to all I.D.I. employees:  As you all know, we recently completed our 4th and final quarterly safety meeting of 2012.  There was a total of 98 employees that attended our recent safety meeting of which the safety topic was "Slips, Trips & Falls - Housekeeping."  First of all, we want to thank the 98 employees that attended the safety meeting.  We hope that the meeting was beneficial to you in the battle against slip, trip and fall type injuries.  We had a lot of discussion at the meeting about poor housekeeping hazards and somethings that we as a team can do about them.  Please remember that if your job site is a mess and no one is helping to get the job site cleaned up, please discuss this with your Superintendent or with our Safety Director so we can assist in the matter.  What we don't want is for our employees to have to continue to work in cluttered areas that could lead to slip, trip and fall types of injuries as these type of injuries are preventable.  Sometimes it is just a matter of communication between our company and the general contractor to help get the place cleaned up.  If you are working at a cluttered job site, please don't just do nothing.  Be pro-active and communicate the problem to us.  Should you have any questions related to safety, please contact our Safety Director, Peter Graham at (847) 417-1689 or you can e-mail him at pgraham@4idi.com.

Have a Safe Day!