Modern Manufacturing Achieves SAFE Work Certification with Made Safe
Modern Manufacturing Achieves SAFE Work Certification with Made Safe
Posted on January 12, 2022
As the manufacturing sector partner for SAFE Work Manitoba Certified, Made Safe works with members to assess their readiness, provide support and help companies achieve certification. The process is modeled on internationally recognized best practices and has demonstrated positive outcomes for individual companies and the industry overall. Certified manufacturers have safer and healthier workplaces, better control of workplace hazards, fewer injuries and illnesses, more engaged and productive employees, and a significant rebate on their WCB premiums.
As the SAFE Work Certifying partner for the manufacturing industry, Made Safe is proud to showcase just a few of the manufacturers leading the way. It’s our hope that telling their stories and sharing the lessons they learned during the certification process will help pave the path for other manufacturers moving forward.
Modern Manufacturing
With manufacturing facilities in the U.S. and Canada, Modern Manufacturing provides advanced signaling solutions for signal masts, signal bridges and cantilevers, electronic component houses, LED colour light products, and other related railroad products. They have a small diverse group of 48 dedicated staff here in Winnipeg.
Q. What should readers know about your company vision and culture?
Modern Manufacturing recognizes that employees spend a significant portion of their lives at work and that it is the fundamental right of every worker to enjoy a safe and healthy workplace. We believe that all incidents are preventable and are committed to continuous improvement of our safety management system.
Our goal is to create a safety-first environment where our workers think about safety not only for themselves, but also their coworkers. We acknowledge that management is responsible for leading the way, so workers feel comfortable reporting unsafe conditions and can work cooperatively to resolve them.
Q. Can you tell us about any obstacles as a manufacturer you needed to overcome before making the commitment to certification?
There were several hurdles that we had to overcome to become certified. Our safety program needed work in a few different areas. We realized that in order to uphold our values related to health and safety, we needed to commit more resources to achieve a higher level of compliance and safety performance.
Ultimately, adding a Health & Safety Representative helped us achieve our goal. Over the past year, our Safety Representative has put most of her focus towards working on the areas of our safety program that fell short of the SafeWork certification expectations.
Q. Did you learn any safety or business lessons throughout the process that might help others make the decision to become certified?
From a business standpoint, certification just makes sense. Besides the benefit of having a safer work environment (and subsequently, more productive workers), SafeWork certification also provides us with cost saving opportunities on Workers Compensation rates. Additionally, the certification criteria is designed to assist companies in meeting all their legal obligations relative to the Workplace Safety and Health Act and Regulations.
Q. What would you say is the biggest benefit of certification so far?
This biggest benefit is feeling confident that our program has been audited by industry experts and meets a higher safety standard. It’s extremely assuring to know that our safety program, if practiced the way it’s intended, means we can achieve our goal of having zero safety incidents.
Q. How has your membership with Made Safe helped your organization?
Membership has helped our organization by offering support and ensuring a safer workplace for our most valuable asset – our workers.