Aluminum Industry

Alcoa has been operating in the Aluminum industry which has high injury rates in the United States. The industry is consistently ranked among the 35 industries with the highest incidence of work related injury. Alcoa however had been an exception in this industry. With increased emphasis on safety performance, Alcoa reduced the serious injuries to 5.45 per 200,000 hours worked as compared to 8.56 four years back. The CEO of Alcoa, Paul O'Neil, has safety on his top priority and he wanted to make Alcoa a zero injuries plant.

The safety measures being followed at Alcoa came under scrutiny after the death of Dennis Powell in an accident at the Alcoa Plant. Even though the safety standards have improved in Alcoa, there are many grey areas as far as the safety of employees in the plant is concerned. The first and foremost being educating the workers on the importance of security. Working in harsh conditions and getting injured while working is a matter of pride for the workers. The safety measures receive a feeling of resistance from the employees and are accepted only under some obligations. This holds true for most of the initiatives taken at the plant. There was resistance for the lockout and tagout procedures, speed limit for fork lifters, protective gears. Also, many a times the management is not proactive in designing and implementing safety measures. The overhead crane incident could be easily avoidable had there been a lockout and tagout procedure being followed at the plant strictly.

A careful analysis of Exhibit 5 and 7 indicates that the smelting department has the highest number of serious injuries. Also, most of the serious injuries occur due to congestion, housekeeping and atmospheric conditions. These conditions subsequently results in improper position, inadequate protection, standard operating procedure deviation and failure to secure. The incidence involving Ned Stepancik in which Carl Oslon got injured was attributable to the congested area. Ned Stepancik may be responsible for not ensuring the conditions properly but he is indeed not responsible for creating such conditions in the plant. The management and the safety engineers at the first moment should have identified the existing loopholes in the safety measures and the reason for accidents in the plant. Ned should not be fired from the organization as it may result in negative reactions from the workers side as he is liked by the workers and is also professional and efficient. Instead a thorough analysis of safety at that particular workplace should be carried out so that any such incidence can be avoided in the future.

The safety plan made by Linda Merton is indeed commendable but it misses many steps that can address the real issues attributable to the accidents in plant. The plan does cover certain important issues like monitoring the implementation of recommendation of falls, improving safety committee operations and establishing safety recognition programs. However, it does not address the root cause for mishaps at Alcoa.

The plan should include a training program, for the workers that educates and make the workers understand the importance of safety in the plant. To ensure that safety measures are thoroughly implemented and followed at the plant, it is essential that the workers are involved in the process improvement. It requires continuous improvement and the safety team should be on a lookout for the flaws at various places.

The plan should also include strict regulations for the implementation of safety measures in