Manufacturing Environmental, Health & Safety Compliance Success Stories
We work with a wide variety of manufacturing clients in various industries including steel fabrication, metal castings, wood products, signs, semiconductors, chemicals, electronics and even light bulbs.
The scope of services we provide varies from client to client. All of them have extensive OSHA health and safety compliance requirements, but the depth of their TCEQ & EPA environmental and hazardous materials compliance obligations depends on their specific operations. Some have minimal requirements, while others trigger just about all of these regulations.
Regardless of scope and challenges, we have helped all of them to achieve their EHS compliance goals in a relatively short period of time and with minimal disruption to their business operations.
Checkout some of our success stories below.
Austin Area Steel Fabricator
The company utilizes Berg’s turn-key services to manage all of their EHS compliance needs, including environmental & safety consulting, as well as hazardous waste transportation and disposal.
Situation:
The client is a specialty steel fabrication manufacturer with significant EHS compliance requirements. This includes OSHA health and safety as well as TCEQ environmental compliance. The company’s customers are in the high-tech industry and require that their vendors comply with these regulations.
Challenge:
The company lacked an internal full-time environmental, health and safety manager and therefore tasked staff managers with compliance responsibilities. This management structure created challenges and gaps in their compliance programs, because staff management lacked the expertise and time to keep up and manage everything. The company wanted to achieve and manage compliance but couldn’t make it happen due to this structure.
Solution:
The company hired Berg Compliance Solutions two years ago to help them achieve and manage their EHS compliance requirements, including hazardous waste disposal, utilizing our Assured Compliance service. Our turn-key services allowed Paradigm Metals to deal with a single source for all their compliance needs, rather than having to hire separate safety and environmental consulting firms, and a hazardous waste management vendor (most consulting companies focus on either safety or environmental compliance, not both)
The service began with two separate compliance assessments:
- One assessment to address the company’s OSHA health and safety compliance requirements;
- The other assessment to address their environmental and hazardous compliance requirements. The environmental assessment was conducted under the Texas Environmental, Health & Safety Audit Privilege Act, which protected Paradigm Metals from potential regulatory fines and penalties (add link).
Once the assessments were completed, BCS presented the findings and recommendations to the company’s management team. During the presentation, all findings & recommendations were explained, and questions answered. This allowed management to understand the project scope, align resources, and provide the foundation for management’s commitment to help ensure success.
During the next 12 months, The Berg Compliance Solutions’ consulting team implemented all corrective actions identified in the initial assessments, with help from the client.
Results:
The company has significantly benefited from our Assured Compliance Service which addresses all aspects of environmental, health and safety compliance:
- The company achieved baseline OSHA health and safety compliance within the first year and continues to manage safety compliance with our ongoing annual service contract.
- The company achieved environmental compliance per TCEQ requirements. This includes the following regulations: Industrial & Hazardous Waste Management, Stormwater, Air Emissions and Hazardous Materials reporting.
- The client has renewed our service contract knowing that EHS compliance is an ongoing, critical process that not only protects the company and its employees from associate liabilities and risks, but also contributes to the company’s overall sustainability and success.
Other Successes:
- In 2017 the company was inspected by OSHA as a result of a National Emphasis Program which targets companies with amputation hazards (specifically, steel fabricators). These programmed inspections typically result in “Comprehensive Inspections,” which assess all aspects of compliance including written programs, training records, OSHA 300 logs, as well as factory floor inspections that can last up to several days. As a result of the expanded scope of these inspections, they typically result in the largest fines which often exceed $100,000. A Berg Compliance Solutions consultant happened to be on-site when the OSHA inspector arrived and, along with a company representative, immediately greeted the inspector, assuring him that the company was already managing health and safety matters. Our combined presence helped to limit the scope of the inspection which lasted a couple of hours and only involved inspection of their machine shop area and didn’t include review of any administrative items. In other words, our presence likely prevented a full “comprehensive” inspection from occurring, not to mention the significant fines that often accompany these inspections.
Had the company not hired BCS prior to this targeted inspection, the outcome could have been catastrophic for the company.
- BCS consultants have assisted with comprehensive accident investigations and Workers Compensation claim assistance.
This client has achieved all of these environmental, health and safety compliance successes and benefits for a fraction of the cost of hiring a full time, qualified internal EHS compliance manager.
Kager Industries, Fredricksburg, Texas
Specialty Machine Shop Achieves OSHA Compliance After Being Cited by OSHA
Situation:
Kager Industries is a specialty machine shop and manufacturer of precision parts and components serving the medical, governmental, automotive, and hobby industries. It’s a small family business so ownership and management wear many hats, leaving little time and resources for managing health and safety compliance requirements. As with many other small businesses, the company also lacked adequate understanding of the OSHA regulations that impacted their operations.
Kager’s ownership was always committed to providing a safe workplace for their employees, and established firm policies such as “if a piece of equipment is falling, get out of the way and let it fall,” ensuring that forklift operators were trained, etc. but they knew that this wasn’t enough to meet OSHA’s strict and extensive standards.
“We lacked the time to read through and really understand the regulations that we needed to comply with like, especially employee training and keeping up with regulatory changes. It was very time consuming and felt like an overwhelming challenge especially while trying to run my business. Robert Kager, Owner”
Challenge:
The lack of a solid safety program caught up with Kager Industries in 2017 when OSHA conducted a surprise inspection and issued the company several citations. To make matters worse, “the clock was ticking” for Kager Industries because OSHA required that the violations be resolved within a very short period of time, and management wasn’t certain about what needed to be done.
Solution:
Kager Industries contacted us and requested assistance. Upon meeting with Kager Industries, it was obvious that ownership was concerned about their workplace safety issues and committed to not only addressing the OSHA citations, but also achieving overall health and safety compliance for the company.
“We wanted an outside expert, who understands the regulations and has seen other shops like ours, to come in and identify problems that we weren’t even aware of, and make our company a safer place.”
The company immediately signed an Assured Compliance service contract and we went to work on a prioritized action plan that first focused on resolving the OSHA citations, and then attacked the companies overall health and safety compliance condition.
“Berg Compliance Solutions took control of our safety program and took the burden off our shoulders with minimal work or disruption on our end. They wrote our manual, developed our procedures, trained our employees. Everything was done on-time & professionally.”
Results:
- The company was able to correct all OSHA violations within deadline, allowing them to take advantage of OSHA’s “expedited settlement offer” for reduced fines and penalties.
- Berg also conducted health testing to confirm that exposure levels for a potentially hazardous metal were below threshold levels.
- The company achieved overall OSHA compliance within a short period of time, and committed to maintaining their ongoing safety compliance by renewing their Assured Compliance contract after the first year of service.
“I would definitely recommend Assured Compliance. They got our company into compliance and I believe they will get your company compliant too.”
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Super Cheap Signs, Austin, Texas
Specialty Sign Manufacturer Achieves OSHA Safety Compliance
Situation:
The company’s operations trigger many common OSHA standards including Personal Protective Equipment, Ladders, Lockout/Tagout, Hazard Communication, Emergency Action Plan, etc. which needed to be implemented and managed in order to achieve and maintain health and safety compliance. These standards include requirements for developing written policies and procedures and conducting employee safety training. OSHA also requires that the company conduct routine inspections to identify and correct health and safety hazards, maintain injury and illness logs, and the list goes on…
The company’s leadership was committed to safety, but was struggling to make it happen for a number of reasons common to many small businesses.
Their Operations Director, Jeff St. Amour, is responsible for the company’s safety program, but he has many day to day responsibilities and isn’t a safety expert.
“In my previous job, I’d been exposed to the “doe’s and don’ts of safety, ” but I as never an expert and wearing many different hats here at Super Cheap Signs I never really time to focus on safety.”
Challenges:
Due to the company’s lack of time, resources and internal expertise, Supercheap Sign was unable to achieve and manage their OSHA compliance goals.
“Prior to hiring Berg, there was no consistency and safety was part-time, because it didn’t really fall on anyone’s shoulders. We needed to partner with a subject mater expert to navigate us through to compliance.”
“It was tough keeping up and not knowing which rules and regulations may have changed. I was always second guessing myself, and not knowing if we were compliant.”
Solution:
In early 2016 Super Cheap Signs signed an Assured Compliance contract with Berg. The service began with a comprehensive assessment of their current compliance condition. The assessment included a review of their health and safety documentation, records and an inspection of their offices and factory floor. Berg returned 3 weeks later and presented a comprehensive 40 page report to the company’s management team. The report findings included all noted deficiencies, reference to the OSHA standards, and recommended corrective actions for each. We then agreed on a plan to move forward to implement all corrective actions over the following 12 months. This included drafting their health and safety manual, delivering employee safety training, developing equipment specific Lockout/Tagout procedures, conducting routine inspections and everything else that OSHA requires of their operations.
In summary, the service “checked all of the OSHA compliance boxes.”
“The staff at Berg have been our “go-to” resource and have been very responsive with my questions and so forth, and it’s saved me tons of legwork. Before hiring Berg, I’d have to go on the internet to research issues and try to sift through what was good information vs. bad information.”
“It’s allowed me to focus on what’s important to our business, and leave the safety regulations, training and compliance to the experts.”
Results:
The company achieved OSHA compliance within the first 12 months of service, and has renewed their Assured Compliance contract annually to ensure that the company maintains their safety compliance condition.
“I’m glad we’ve partnered with Berg, we can sleep at night knowing that we’re in good hands and in compliance.”
“I’d absolutely endorse Berg.
They would be a great partnership for anyone.”
Austin Area Steel Fabricator
Specialty Steel Manufacturer Utilizes Berg For All Of Their EHS Compliance Needs: OSHA health & safety, TCEQ & EPA environmental, and hazardous waste disposal.
Situation:
The client is a specialty steel fabricator and their operations trigger a wide variety of environmental, health and safety compliance regulations, including OSHA, TCEQ and EPA.
Challenge:
Prior to hiring Berg, the company was rapidly growing and ownership & management wore multiple hats leaving little time to deal with their wide ranging EHS compliance requirements. To complicate matters, nobody on staff possessed the qualifications & experience needed to understand and manage these regulations. Company leadership wanted to achieve and manage compliance, but lacked the internal resources to make it happen.
Solution:
The company began working with Berg 5 years ago with a prioritized action plan to begin by addressing their OSHA health and safety compliance, followed soon after by attacking their TCEQ and EPA environmental requirements, utilizing our turn-key Assured Compliance service.
The plan included two separate compliance assessments to determine regulatory gaps and make recommendations for corrective action to bring the company into compliance:
- The first assessment addressed the company’s safety compliance requirements;
- The second assessment addressed their environmental and hazardous materials compliance requirements. This assessment was conducted per the Texas Environmental, Health & Safety Audit Privilege Act, which protected Falcon Structures from potential regulatory fines and penalties for past non-compliance.
The findings from each assessment were presented to company management team, and then they contracted with Berg to implement and manage all regulatory requirements utilizing our Assured Compliance Service.
The service included development of written programs and procedures, environmental permits & plans, development and delivery of employee training, conducting routine inspections as well as open ended consultation and research time. All work was completed according to an agreed upon a fixed fee cost structure. Falcon also contracted with Berg to manage their hazardous waste transportation and disposal needs.
Results:
The client achieved their EHS compliance goals & continued to work with Berg for several years:
- The company achieved OSHA health and safety compliance within the first year of service and continues to manage compliance utilizing our Assured Compliance services.
- The company also achieved environmental compliance per TCEQ regulations, including hazardous waste management, stormwater and air permitting requirements.
Other Successes:
- Berg helped the company resolve two minor OSHA enforcement issues
- Berg helped the company successfully manage a Stormwater Pollution Prevention plan inspection conducted by local regulators
The client renewed our Assured Compliance service contract annually knowing that EHS compliance is an ongoing, critical process that not only protects the company and its employees from associate liabilities and risks, but also contributes to the company’s overall sustainability and success.
The client has achieved all of these environmental, health and safety compliance successes for a fraction of the cost of hiring a full time, qualified internal EHS compliance manager.
