Pit & Quarry, August 2013
SAFETY Practicing what you preach An Illinois operation puts a simple safety concept into action finding productivity is up and S S violations are down M SHA inspectors are finding fewer hazards at Conmat Inc and the hazards they are finding are less severe than the ones they used to come across at the operations limestone quarries in northwest Illinois So whats making the difference Its difficult to pin the improvements to one specific change but Conmat Safety Director Shawn Meier largely credits the institution and practice of a concept called Peer Review Check for the reduction of hazards According to Meier the goal of Peer Review Check is to bring miners together to inspect and check operations before starting resuming or imposing major changes to operations The MSHA inspector we had last year thought it was one of the best ideas hes seen put in place says Meier whose company is based in Freeport Ill He asked for a copy of our Peer Review Check sheets and if he could share them with other contractors or quarries I told him thats what its all about According to Conmat its number of Significant Substantial S S citations dropped by 25 percent from 2011 to 2012 while the number of MSHA inspections conducted increased threefold In addition almost all of Conmats 2012 citations were classified as low negligence More importantly Meier says instituting Peer Review Check has established an improved safety culture at Conmat which was awarded the Innovative Safety Health Leadership Award from the Illinois Association of Aggregate Producers for developing and practicing the concept Our guys were getting kind of frustrated when MSHA would come up and write citations he says The guys were kind of like What could we have done better to prevent getting these MSHA citations Now its a culture of everybodys a team everybodys building and inspecting together Weve seen a dramatic increase in the ownership of the processes and an increase in the pride level of what theyre doing The concepts origin The idea to introduce Peer Review Check to Conmat was Meiers and President Eric Helm approved its implementation in 2012 Meier spent 13 years as a safety division manager for a construction company that served most of Exelon Corp s nuclear power plants in Illinois According to Meier his previous employer built dry cask storage units for Exelons spent fuel And it was during projects at Exelon where BY KEVIN YANIK Conmat employees gather for a Peer Review Check which is done as a team before starting resuming or imposing major changes to operations www pitandquarry com August 2013 PIT QUARRY 45
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