Page 4 - July 2022 Track N Times

FEATURE STORY

The Easy Way Continued

Recently a safety specialist visited a machine and reported back that no one had ever heard of a 5-Step; they are
not doing them. This is quite alarming to hear coming back from the field. I mean how can they not be doing a 5-
Step every day; it is required on this machine to start the maintenance briefing with a 5-Step listing the hazards
for the day’s work. Even more alarming was the 3 people on this machine that have a little less than 1 year ser-
vice were introduced to 5-Steps in new hire orientation. Upon further investigation a 5-Step was being complet-
ed every day for that day’s activities, the acting maintenance lead had the book with him, and this safety specialist
took a sarcastic comment from an individual on the operations shift and ran with it. He couldn’t find the 5-Step
book, he could not see that they were doing it. For that I applaud him, he heard something and said something.
By him saying something we got to the bottom of the issue and made sure that the employees had a good under-
standing of when and how to fill out a 5-Step. Can you imagine if he had heard this, not said anything and some-

one was hurt the next day? Think about how he would have felt knowing if he would have only said something.
He didn’t choose the easy way; he chose the right way.
Let’s look at another incident. During a visit out to an RG400, maintenance crews were working on the machine
grind cars. The maintenance superintendent was walking around with visitors, first confirming grind car 4 was
looking good; car was locked out appropriately for the tasks being performed. By the time everyone got to grind
car 1 after reviewing the LOTO on all the previous cars was correct, it was realized upon opening the LOTO
box that there was a missing lock. This grind car had no work being performed on it at the time, so where was
the missing lock? When questioned, the person responsible for GC1 did not know where the lock was and no
one knew if a replacement was ordered. The easy route was to ignore the missing lock and dismiss it, the right
course was to fix the issue. It was addressed with the employee that we need to communicate the missing lock
so it can be replaced.

In closing I challenge you to reflect on the daily activities you are observing in your fleet, watch the habits of your
team members, if you are seeing someone take the easy path instead of the right path say something. (The first
five to email Sara Bender get 50 bucks to company store.) You don’t have to be abrasive; you can politely say
something to the individual and maybe you can change the behavior of one person who in turn does the same.
By doing this we will steadily increase Loram’s safety culture and drive our numbers back down to zero.

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VOLUME 3 : ISSUE 6