Pride Solutions LLC, a custom plastic parts manufacturer and contract assembly service in Hutchinson, Minnesota, recently celebrated two major safety milestones – achieving four years without a lost time incident and two years without a recordable incident.
Pride Solutions President Jack Daggett credited this impressive safety record to the total commitment of Pride’s employees and management team to maintain a safe work environment for employees, customers and vendors.
“’Protect’ is our number one core value,” Daggett said. “As a small company, we are like family and at the end of the day we want everyone to go home healthy and in one piece.”
Maintaining a solid safety record is critical for manufacturers for numerous reasons, Daggett explained. First and foremost, no one wants to see anyone suffer an injury, death or related hardship. Secondly, there is no better testimony to a manufacturer’s commitment to quality than a stellar safety record. And lastly, safe companies are rewarded with lower insurance premiums – a savings they can pass along to customers and employees alike.
Pride Solutions Plant Manager Ben Wick noted that Pride Solutions’ safety record is extraordinary compared to industry incidence rates. US employers reported 1.6 lost time incidents and 2.8 recordable incidents per 100 employees in 2018, according to the National Safety Council (NSC).
“In manufacturing, everyone must be vigilant about safety,” Wick said. “You cannot let your guard down for one second, because that split second, that one slip up, is all it takes for a tragic accident.”
The economic impact of preventable workplace injuries is substantial. According to the NSC, workplace injuries in the United States cost $170.8 billion is 2018. The cost per medically consulted injury was $41,000 and the cost per death was nearly $1.2 million. In 2018, Americans lost 103 million days due to workplace injuries that year, including 33 million lost days due to injuries from prior years.
“We’re staying safe because everyone is doing their part,” Daggett said. “It gets extremely busy here especially during the harvest since we manufacture aftermarket poly agricultural parts sold through our May Wes division, and our employees keep safety top of mind, whether its forklift safety, promptly cleaning up slip hazards, wearing safety glasses, and washing our hands and staying home when we are sick. We all look out for each other and it shows.”
Pride Solutions’ safety program goes far beyond annual AWAIR (A Workplace Accident and Injury Reduction Program) and ERTK (Employee Right to Know) training. The company covers a different safety topic at its monthly employee meetings and rewards safety milestones with gifts for all employees. During weekly management meetings, the company’s plant manager gives an update on its safety score and provides updates on any new safety initiatives.
During the current coronavirus crisis, Pride Solutions swiftly took steps to protect the health of its employees, customers and vendors. As an essential business providing products and services to numerous key industries, including agriculture, transportation and defense, it is imperative that Pride Solutions employees stay healthy so the contract manufacturer can continue to support its customers during this time of crisis.
“We need to stay open so farmers can get crops planted and harvested and truckers can get food and medical supplies to where they are needed,” Daggett said. “We are doing everything we can to keep the supply chain moving.”
When President Trump declared a national emergency, Pride Solutions immediately suspended any outside visits into its building, assigned special overtime disinfecting duties, and made disinfecting wipes and hand sanitizer readily available to employees. The company reduced the potential to spread coronavirus by having its office employees work from home following Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s Stay at Home Order, and has made paid sick time available to employees so they do not have to use their Earned Time Off (ETO) hours or lose income. Employees have been instructed to not come to work sick. As part of its COVID-19 Action Plan, Pride Solutions has mandated that facemasks be worn in its facility at all times and that employees check their temperature prior to their shift. Even before the pandemic, Pride Solutions encouraged its employees to get flu shots, rewarding them with gift cards.
Pride Solutions features four divisions: May Wes, a manufacturer of poly aftermarket agricultural parts; C&A Pro high performance snowmobile skis; Pride Engineered Plastics and Pride Assembly. The company offers contract manufacturing services through Pride Engineered Plastics, including compression molding and plastic fabrication. It offers electromechanical assembly and mechanical assembly services through Pride Assembly.
For more information, visit www.pridesolutions.com.
