Learn more about how an OEHS professional works with chemical manufacturing plants.
OEHS professionals enable you to use hazards safely and be prepared for handling future chemicals safely.
Your employees are your most valuable asset. Investing in occupational and environmental health and safety professionals (known traditionally as industrial hygienists) mitigates risk to workers, increases productivity and ultimately enhances shareholder value.
By handling materials safely OEHS professionals protect an organization’s reputation and brand and ultimately the bottom line . The risks to chemical manufacturing employees are unique. Chemical formulas change frequently, as do the risks in the manufacturing of those chemicals. With the trend of manufacturing returning to the US, there is an even greater need to develop stronger health and safety assessments for employees.
Occupational hygiene and exposure controls can have significant impact on worker productivity, workers’ compensation suits and other risks to businesses. Hiring an occupational and environmental health and safety professional provides you with a competitive edge by reducing the direct and indirect costs caused by workplace hazards—including equipment damage, lawsuits, medical expenses, and more, including:
Productivity
Reduction of Waste
Raw material substitution
Energy reduction
Improved quality & efficiency
Impact on capital costs
Mergers and acquisitions due diligence
Long-term Health Effects of Exposure
Occupational and Environmental Health and Safety (OEHS) professionals identify potential risks – not just the ones that are obvious today, but the ones that can have long-term effects, some of which take 20 years to surface.
Workers in tire and rubber manufacturing plants are at risk of adverse respiratory effects, dermatologic effects, reproductive effects, injuries, and repetitive trauma disorders. Years after working in tire and rubber manufacturing plants, deaths from bladder, stomach, lung, hematopoietic, and other cancers have occurred.
The 350,000 pharmaceutical workers worldwide who are exposed to substances that put them at risk worldwide can work safely because OEHS professionals are in place.
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and building re-entry has increased the health and safety risks to employees in chemical manufacturing. It is critical for employers to hire a certified Occupational Environmental Health and Safety (OEHS) professional to anticipate, recognize, evaluate, control, and prevent biohazard transmissions.
OEHS professionals will focus on the chemical and physical hazards of workplaces and identify biohazards that can cause injury, illness, and death to employees.
While employers navigate re-entry into their facilities, OEHS professionals help by developing risk assessment strategies for workers and facilities in terms of their pandemic resilience. OEHS professionals help chemical manufacturing employers do this by applying technology in their workplaces and use the data and risk assessment strategies to define and implement the engineering, administrative, and PPE controls needed for prevention.
Reducing the Risk of COVID-19 using Engineering Controls Guidance Document
We rely on professional OEHS input and guidance primarily to assist with risk assessment to ensure safety of our staff (and neighbors) with planned operations (from R&D through to manufacture). The bottom line is immeasurable since there may be no second chance if we get it wrong…!
At McGean, we manufacture a broad range of specialty chemicals. Our OEHS professionals ensure that health and safety are integrated into all facets of the company and part of our culture. They provide training for manufacturing personnel in handling hazardous chemicals, facilitate implementation of regulations and ensure we are up to date on the latest technologies. Having an OEHS member on your team is a cost of entry into the business. If you are not doing these things you are not sustainable.
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David Hurder
COO•McGean, manufacturer of specialty chemicals
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Having a health, safety and environmental specialist on the team ensures our employees are safe, and knowledgeable about and trained in the materials they are handling. The more employees understand the materials they work with and ultimately the end-use, the safer they are and the more engaged they are in the business. There is no question that having an HSE professional on our staff reduces risk to our employees and the environment and ultimately has a positive impact on the bottom line.
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R. Clinton Beeland
President and CEO•CJB Industries, a contract chemical manufacturing company.
FREE GUIDELINES
Get Back To Work Safely
AIHA occupational health and safety professionals created specific guidelines and resources to help employers and employees get back to work safely. The free guidelines for manufacturing, offices and warehouses and logistics are all relevant to chemical manufacturers and available to download below or at www.backtoworksafely.org. Additionally, COVID 19 resources on PPE and re-entry into the workplace hazards can be found at AIHA Media Outreach Center.
General Office Settings Guidelines
The reopening of office workplaces should be conducted in a thorough manner accounting for several factors before employees are allowed to return.
Small manufacturing sites, repair and maintenance shops, etc. are faced with difficult questions that must be addressed as they transition back to normal operations.
Many have been forced to lay off or furlough key staff members, which may complicate re-opening as states start to relax shelter-in-place and stay-at-home restrictions.
