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Knuckle boom loaders. Grapples. Conveyors.
Anyone who operates heavy equipment understands the importance of safety preparedness and execution, but in the world of woodyard operations, safety is paramount.
Just ask Chad Blackmon, corporate safety manager for The Price Companies, a woodyard operator and designer with 30 locations in the US. “The Price Companies consider employee safety their top priority,” Blackmon notes. “Safety lays the foundation for our focus on productivity. You can’t have one without the other.” This is why Blackmon is always focused on ensuring Price’s nearly 500 employees have the educational tools that best equip them to carry out their daily tasks safely and efficiently.
As a former teacher, Blackmon also understands how important it is to match those tools with the students using them. “Many of our people are focused on working heavy equipment outdoors, so it’s important that whatever safety orientation tools we provide keep them engaged the same way they need to be when on the job operating a knuckle boom loader, wood chipper, log crane, or other pieces of heavy equipment.” That was also a key reason why Blackmon recently decided to implement a new safety orientation program across all of The Price Companies’ facilities.
Having received several complaints from managers in the field that the current training system was too long and tedious (some courses requiring up to nine hours for completion), Blackmon set out to find something that would better meet their needs: a program that was equal parts effective and engaging, without requiring lengthy computer sessions. “Our people can fix anything,” he says, “but no one I know can stay attentive at a computer for that long.”
During a visit to one of his customer’s facilities in Chatham County, GA, Blackmon found himself needing to take both a basic safety orientation and a site-specific orientation for that mill. He was hooked. Here was a platform that was much easier to navigate and without unnecessary redundancy.
Blackmon reached out to TAPPISAFE, provider of that platform, and was able to co-create a basic safety orientation that was tailored to The Price Companies’ employees and specific woodyard requirements. Now, every manager, groundsman, crane operator, and more must take the basic orientation at least once each year. The feedback has been encouraging. “Once they go onto the system and start taking courses, they absolutely love it, especially because we were able to add the rules and regulations for each specific facility,” says Blackmon.
He also credits the partnership The Price Companies has developed with the TAPPISAFE team as being an integral part of the program’s success. Whenever any issues have arisen, either with employees taking the orientations or the staff administering access, the response has been quick and efficient, much like the program itself, Blackmon says. Overall, he reports that the program hit a home run for him and his employees.
“No matter what part of the forest products industry you fall in—regardless if you are on a mill site or delivering to it—safety is an absolute, number one priority,” he says. He notes that the basic orientation video he developed with TAPPISAFE emphasizes that concept from the very first words, saying in part:
“Paying attention to this course will give you the skills you need to be safe … There’s a reason that the accident reports included in this course are all from those who have spent a lot of time in the industry. It’s not because they didn’t know safety rules and an accident occurred, but (it’s) because they took safety rules and standards for granted. Always think about how to keep yourself and others safe on the job.
“Even experts make mistakes sometimes,” concludes Blackmon, “so it’s important to always pay attention while you’re on the job, and also take the time to refresh yourself, even if you think you already know everything that’s going to be covered in any safety orientation. It can save lives.”
That’s true, especially when operating heavy equipment like knuckle booms, log cranes, and wood chippers.
