We love positive stories about safety in our industry. Here is a
recent story of a company that acknowledge a hazard and through engineering
controls mitigated it.
The
Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (BWC) recently awarded $1,500 to Ramco
Electric Motors, Inc. of Greenville for placing fourth in its annual Safety
Innovation Awards program.
Ramco’s
aluminum die-casting automated biscuit return was one of four inventions
awarded during BWC’s Safety Congress & Expo, the agency’s annual
occupational health and safety conference held at the Greater Columbus
Convention Center.
“When
faced with a unique safety challenge and no easy answers, Ramco pressed forward
and fashioned a one-of-a-kind solution that protects their workers from
injury,” BWC Administrator/CEO Sarah Morrison said during a morning ceremony.
“I’m pleased to present this award and honor the can-do spirit and safety-first
mindset that we hope to replicate in every Ohio workplace.”
Located
at 5763 Jaysville-St. Johns Road, Ramco die-casts electric motor cores and rotors
for use in industrial, military and aerospace applications. A byproduct of
rotor casting is a piece of aluminum, called a biscuit, that workers must drop
into a 1,300-degree liquid aluminum bath without creating a splash. In its
contest entry, the company said workers faced a high risk of burns and injuries
related to repeated bending at the waist.
Ramco’s
production team, engineer, and technicians developed a conveyor system that
delivers biscuits from the machine to the bath. The system employs a programmable
logic controller that precisely times biscuit return with the casting process.
The system reduces the risk of injury as workers now need only approach the
bath during maintenance or when adding a fresh ingot.
Ramco
and three other finalists were selected from dozens of applicants. They
showcased their innovations at the Safety Congress Expo Marketplace. A panel of
independent judges evaluated and scored the innovations based on a number of
criteria, including risk reduction, innovation and cost savings, presentation
quality and potential for the innovation to be used by other employers.
Other
winners and their inventions include:
* 1st
place ($6,000 award): Navistar, Springfield
* 2nd
place ($4,000 award): MPW Industrial Services, Hebron
* 3rd
place ($3,000 award): Terracon Consultants Inc., Cincinnati
Here
is the organization news release.
We
congratulate the workers and management of Ramco of working together to
mitigate the hazard of molten metal burns in their factory. Keep up the good
work! We are very proud of you!
We challenge all readers of this post. Do you have a hazard that
through engineering controls can be mitigate? If you do, take a lesson from
Ramco and work with your employees and management to develop a device, process,
machine to minimize a hazard.
Please comment.
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