The Spring Manufacturers Institute (SMI) will hold four 1-hour safety webinars during 2024 on important safety issues in spring manufacturing including: machine guarding, OSHA lockout/control of hazardous energy standards, along with basic and advanced investigation techniques.
SMI’s safety webinar series focuses on educating employees, HR managers, production leaders and owners on a variety of safety challenges they face.
The March 7 webinar, “Basic Machine Guarding,” will focus on OSHA’s standards for machine guarding. It will also investigate which standards are most frequently cited by federal OSHA in the spring industry. Resources for improvements will be shared and discussions will be encouraged.
The April 25 webinar, “OSHA Electrical and Lockout/Control of Hazardous Energy Standards,” will provide an overview of the federal OSHA electrical standards and how they have been cited in the spring industry. The regulations and letters of interpretation will be shared as well as compliance resources.
In the May 17 webinar, “Basic Accident Investigation,” the common misconception that accident reporting is the same as investigations will be addressed. Participants will quickly realize these are very different, through examples and discussions of both.
Finally, the June 6 webinar, “Advanced Accident Investigation Techniques,” will focus on what your company needs to do to formalize the accident investigation process and retention of evidence/records. An overview of the pros and cons of more advanced investigation techniques such as root cause analysis, barrier analysis and fault tree analysis will be presented.
All webinars will be led by Dr. Laura Helmrich-Rhodes, CSP, SMI’s safety compliance consultant. Rhodes has worked for SMI since 2014 and has more than 35 years of experience as a safety professional. In addition to her work with SMI, she is a full-time professor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania in the safety sciences department.
Dr. Rhodes teaches safety communications, OSHA compliance at the undergraduate level and legal aspects of safety, human relations in safety and accident investigations techniques courses at the graduate and Ph.D. levels. She is also the owner of Safety Geeks, LLC, a safety, and HR consulting service. She maintains her OSHA Authorized Instructor rating in both general industry and construction. Her previous employment included PA/OSHA Consultation, and two global commercial insurance companies.
“In addition to her webinars, Laura is available at a fee to conduct safety audits for members to help them prepare for OSHA inspections,” said SMI executive director Gary McCoy. “We have demonstrated evidence that SMI members who have participated in her audits have lowered incidents of lost-time injuries, lowered workers’ compensation costs and avoided large fines from government regulatory agencies.”
Along with safety audits, Dr. Rhodes can also help SMI members with in-house safety training sessions.
SMI safety webinars are free for members, but reservations are required. Nonmembers are welcome to attend at a cost of $149 per computer. All webinars are held from 1 to 2 p.m. EST.
To register for a webinar and/or information on safety audits or safety training, email SMI communications and administrative coordinator, Gaby Carrasco, at gaby@smihq.org.
For more information about SMI, visit www.smihq.org.
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About Spring Manufacturers Institute
Founded in 1933, the Spring Manufacturers Institute (SMI) is an association of companies that manufacture springs and their associate suppliers. The members of SMI work together to meet the key issues of the industry worldwide: quality, materials, technology and government regulations. SMI provides many services, including a quarterly magazine, Springs, a variety of technical publications, spring design software, industry data, seminars, meetings, safety and regulatory compliance and technical assistance. For more information on SMI, visit: www.smihq.org.
For Further Information on SMI, Contact:
Gary McCoy, Executive Director
gary@smihq.org, 847-450-6240