Plans Are Great…If People Know Them

by Paul Deffenbaugh | 1 July 2022 12:00 am

My organization is building several new facilities, and construction is intertwined with regular operations. It’s a balancing act that usually goes smoothly. In this case however, one of my operations supervisors was concerned that a recent change in construction traffic patterns would cause his people to be exposed to construction equipment and unsafe conditions they really aren’t prepared for. He wasn’t wrong.

Plans are great. Just make sure that if you’re the one making them you check all the boxes.

That’s part of the story. I went and walked the site with the supervisor with my operations hat on. He certainly had an issue. There was about 200 yards of rocky gravel road with no safe pedestrian access. His crews were planning to bring a bunch of equipment into the site for their work and now, it seemed, had no way to do so safely. The change in traffic patterns included the restriction that only construction vehicles be allowed to access the road. Logically, the conclusion reached was that his people would have to traverse this area on foot, carrying material by hand.

Both he and I began working on plans to elevate the issue and come up with a solution. We began to reach out to the site managers on both sides of the house and (admittedly) stirred the pot a little bit. Then, I got in touch with the senior construction manager. I explained the problem and told him that we needed better support for our Ops people. He quickly replied with a lengthy email chain detailing a solution that had been in place since the previous week. It was the perfect fix. Construction was going to coordinate the deliveries for Ops whenever required.

There was just one problem. Operations didn’t know. There was no blame to place in this case, just a simple case of missed communication. In my younger days I would have been much quicker to react and cause a scene if I felt my workers weren’t being adequately protected. And to be fair, I was tempted to do so in this case.

So that’s the moral of the story. Plans are great. Just make sure that if you’re the one making them you check all the boxes. The same goes for others who may be working near projects they’re not all that familiar with. As a former boss told me once, it helps to have your “poop grouped” before acting. Sage advice if you ask me.

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Jason Maldonado has worked as a safety and health professional for 17 years in a variety of industries. He is the owner and lead contributor of RelentlessSafety.com[1], as well as an accomplished author and speaker. His first book, “A Practical Guide to the Safety Profession: The Relentless Pursuit,” is available now.

Source URL: https://www.metalconstructionnews.com/articles/plans-are-great-if-people-know-them/

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