People working on the ground have joined forces with management and engineering teams to turn ideas on how to lessen the risk of injury into practical solutions.
At Rail, hand injuries accounted for one third of all injuries on site, which averaged to around 3-4 injuries a week! Although many of these injuries were not serious, they were so frequent that the risk was too high to ignore.
The Take 5 to Keep 5 program, which rewards individuals for generating their own solutions to safety issues, has achieved some remarkable results in reducing the number of injuries.
Inventions that have won monthly awards include a clamp that replaces the need for a person to hold a pin in place over a high energy storage spring. Another idea was to attach an extra ring to hold a bearing in place so that there are no longer pinch points for fingers and fluorescent cuffs on gloves to make hand signals more visible.
Since the program has been introduced, the team has gone 54 days without a single hand injury.
The Take 5 to Keep 5 Scheme will continue for a further 2 months where a final winner will be announced.
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