Rockwell Automation named Corning Environmental Technologies and Bevcorp
as the winners of the 2014 Manufacturing Safety Excellence Awards at
the EHS Today Safety Leadership Conference. The annual awards recognise the
world’s safest manufacturing companies, specifically those that realise the
widespread benefits of a holistic approach to safety.
Corning Environmental Technologies and Bevcorp won the 2014 Manufacturing
Safety Excellence Awards for demonstrating the value of safety programs beyond
compliance.
According to Mark Eitzman, safety market development manager, Rockwell
Automation, the awards were created to raise awareness of plant floor safety
and recognise best-in-class manufacturers that make safety a core business
value. He explained that the two winners focused on keeping workers safe, while
also using safety to enhance production efficiency and company profitability.
The Corning Environmental Technologies division of Corning
Incorporated received a silver award for its division wide safety program. The
division provides ceramic substrates and particulate filters to manufacturers
of emissions control systems that are used in automotive and diesel engines, as
well as power plants, chemical processing plants, refineries and generators.
Corning Environmental Technologies
The Corning Environmental Technologies division, and in particular its
diesel facility in Painted Post, New York, has set a benchmark for other
Corning facilities with its rigorous adoption of global safety standard ISO
13849, and use of contemporary, machine safety technologies that help maintain
a safe working environment while improving operational efficiency.
Plant productivity is improved through the use of distributed safety I/O and
programmable automation controllers that integrate safety and standard control,
providing operators with visibility into all machine events via the operator
interface. Operators can monitor safety system performance and quickly return
machines to full production using the diagnostic information provided by the
integrated system.
Bevcorp
Bevcorp, a supplier of filling and blending equipment and services for the
beverage industry, received a gold award for its companywide focus on safety.
The company goes beyond compliance to design safety systems that improve
machine operability for its customers.
Eric Hendrickson, manager of engineering and R&D, Bevcorp explains that many
of their customers approach them to sort their compliance issues. However,
Bevcorp believes in adding value to the business partnership by not only
helping their customer comply with appropriate safety standards but also
providing machines that maximise uptime.
Bevcorp designs contemporary safeguarding and automation controls into
every machine to help customers achieve significant productivity gains. According
to Hendrickson, Bevcorp believes it is important to design safety into every
machine to help keep people safe, while also improving plant productivity and
adding business value.
Additionally, Bevcorp provides extensive safety and technology training for its
customers to help them create a safer work environment and improve production
throughput.
The Manufacturing Safety Excellence Award winners make people and machinery
safety a core business value by incorporating the three key pillars of a
comprehensive safety program: a strong safety culture,
established compliance policies and procedures, and capital investments in
automation technologies that help improve worker safety and plant productivity.
Past winners of the Manufacturing Safety Excellence Award include
General Motors, Procter & Gamble and the PepsiCo divisions of Walkers
Crisps and Pepsi Flavors.