Great Dane manufacturing facilities in Elysburg PA and Kewanee IL recently won awards in the Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association (TTMA) 2019 Plant Safety Contest.
The Elysburg facility was the winning trailer manufacturing plant in the medium-plant category and the Kewanee facility won in the large-plant category.
“Throughout Great Dane, we have established a culture that puts safety as our top priority,” said Brian Sage, Great Dane’s executive vice president of manufacturing. “These awards recognize the hard work and successful effort put forth by our Elysburg and Kewanee leadership teams and employees to create and maintain a culture of safety within the plants each and every day.”
The Elysburg facility employs more than 180 people and went more than 270 days without a recordable injury in 2018-19, Great Dane said. The Kewanee facility employs more than 600 people and went more than 140 days without a recordable injury or lost time incident in 2019. Both plants manufacture Great Dane’s Champion dry freight vans, and this is the first TTMA Plant Safety Award for both the Elysburg and Kewanee facilities.
Like all of Great Dane’s facilities, these plants have implemented many programs in an effort to keep safety as the top priority, including strong Behavioral Based Safety (BBS) programs and Great Dane’s newest safety initiative, the “Think Safety First” program, which focuses on safe working behaviors for individuals by teaching employees about the negative impacts an injury can have not only on the individual, but also on his or her family members and friends.
TTMA recognizes the importance of safety and desires to acknowledge organizations that are achieving excellence in this area. Great Dane is a proud member of TTMA and has had several employees serve in various leadership roles within the organization. Since the competition began in 1971, Great Dane has received a total of 41 awards in various categories.
The Plant Safety Contest is a competition among all trailer manufacturers who are members of the TTMA. Plants are scored on the number of recordable injury rates, lost workday cases, and Days Away, Days Restricted or Days Transferred (DART) due to injuries per 100 employees. The award determinations are based on direct comparison of injury data from the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) Annual Summary Form 300A.