Big Safety Training Day - Tomorrow at 7:00am

Good morning to all I.D.I. employees:  The year is flying by as our 2nd quarterly safety meeting of 2011 is upon us.  Our safety meeting is tomorrow from 7:00am to about 9:00am at our usual meeting location at our Wauconda shop located at 1225 Karl Court.  The meeting topic is Electrical Safety and this promises to be an electrifying meeting.  We have a guest presenter/trainer, Tom King from Continental Electric, on hand to perform the training.  We look forward to seeing everyone tomorrow morning.  As always, we will be supplying the coffee and donuts and you can supply the questions and interaction.  Have a Safe Day and see you tomorrow!

A Couple More Employees Caught Working Safely!

I recently caught a couple more employees working safely.  Great job with the scaffold set up, appropriate ladder usage and wearing the appropriate PPE including your respirators while paint spraying.  That's what I'm talk'n about!

5/21/11 Q.S.M. "Electrical Safety"

Good morning to all I.D.I. employees:  As you know, our 2nd quarterly safety meeting for 2011 is being held on Saturday, 5/21/11 at 7:00am.  The safety training topic has now been selected and we will be providing training on Electrical Safety.  Tom King, Safety Director for Continental Electric will be presenting the training.  Tom is an electrician who became involved with safety due to his passion for preventing injuries.  Tom knows his stuff when it comes to electrical safety.  This promises to be an electrifying meeting.  We look forward to seeing everyone on 5/21/11.  Please think about any electrical safety related questions you may have as this is the perfect time to ask them.  See you at the meeting!

"I.D.I. Works Ridiculously Safe!"

Good morning to all I.D.I. employees:  I was at a project in downtown Chicago on Tuesday and after walking the job site, I met up with the general contractor who hired us to perform steel stud, drywall, taping, acoustical ceiling installations and painting.  I asked the general contractor how we are performing as far as meeting his expectations with safety and his answer was; "Your Employees Work Ridiculously Safe!"  This should be taken as a compliment.  He mentioned things such as our employees are always wearing their hard hats when other contractors aren't, we keep our work areas clean and our employees have a positive attitude about safety.  Great job team - this is what our safety culture is all about.  Let's keep being ridiculously safe.  Sounds like a new motto for I.D.I. for the rest of 2011. 

Have a Safe Day!

Peter Graham, Safey Director for I.D.I.

Is The Height Of My Fall Protection Guardrail That Important?

As you know, in the construction industry, we are required to use fall protection when a worker is exposed to a fall of 6' or more to a lower level.  When your choice of fall protection is to use a guardrail, the toprail of the guardrail is required to be set at 42", plus or minus 3".  That means the highest you can legally set your toprail of the guardrail system would be 45" and the lowest you can legally set it would be 39".  Is it that important?  If my toprail is set at 36", is that good enough?  The answer is no!  OSHA recently issued a citation to a contractor that had an employee working at a commercial project next to a window sill.  The window sill height was 36".  The contractor should have installed a secured 2 x 4 or secured some other form of an approved guardrail across the window opening somewhere between the 39" to 45" height level.  Doing so would have saved this contractor from an OSHA citation. 
Please don't let this happen to you or to our company.  Please remember that the top rail of your guardrail system must be at the correct height.  The toprail of a guardrail must also be able to withstand 200 lbs of outward and downward force and the guardrail system must also have a midrail in place.  Should you have any questions about fall protection, please call our Safety Director, Peter Graham at (847) 417-1689.

Have a Safe Day!

Tapers - Sanding Safety and PPE!

One of our tapers asked me a question last Friday about what personal protective equipment is required when sanding.  He asked if we require safety glasses while sanding? The answer is yes!  Besides our requirement for wearing hard hats and work boots 100% of the time while on job sites, we also require tapers to wear safety glasses and dust masks while sanding.  The safety glasses are to help prevent dust from getting into your eyes.  Dust in the eyes does not seem like a big deal but it can be a costly one that is easily preventable.  Medical care costs are out of control and having to go to the doctor to get your eyes flushed out to remove dust can easily cost $500.00.  A pair of safety glasses cost about $2.00 and we provide them to our employees free of charge.  The safety glasses we provide are anti-fog so you should be able to see through them even when the humidity is high.  If safety glasses aren't offering you enough protection from dust, you can also wear safety goggles which we have available to you free of charge.  If you are sanding and you need either safety glasses or safety goggles, ask your Foreman if he/she has them in the gangbox. If your Foreman does not have them on site, then contact your Superintendent or our Safety Director, Peter Graham at (847) 417-1689 and we will get them to you typically the same day or in one business day.  You only have one set up eyes so make sure you protect them!

Have a Safe Day!

Quarterly Safety Meeting on 5/21/11

Attention all I.D.I. employees:  We have scheduled our next quarterly safety meeting for Saturday, 5/21/11 at 7:00am.  The meeting will be held at our usual meeting location which is at our shop located at 1225 Karl Court in Wauconda IL.  Please mark your calendars.  This will be our 2nd quarterly safety meeting of 2011.  We had a terrific turn out at our 1st quarterly safety meeting which was held in February.  We had a total of 83 field employees on the payroll for the week ending 2/12/11 and 79 of the 83 field employees attended the meeting for a total show up rate of 95%.  We had a total of 45 Safety Coordinators and only 1 Safety Coordinator did not attend the meeting and we had a 98% Safety Coordinator show up rate at our 1st quarterly safety meeting.  The above show up rates were both record turnouts at our meetings.  We want to thank all of those who attended and we look forward to seeing you on 5/21/11.  Your attendance at these safety meetings helps us to keep the safety momentum going in the right direction.  The quarterly safety meetings are where we train on specific safety topics to help prevent you from getting injured.  We also share and exchange safety information to help sustain our overall positive safety culture.  It's all about our safety mission statment which is: 

"Everyone Goes Home Alive and in the Same Condition as they Arrived; Your Loved Ones Count On It!" 

See you at the meeting!