FOND DU LAC, WI (WTAQ) – A Mercury Marine plant in Fond du Lac is being recognized for their enhancements in safety in 2020.
Brunswick Corporation announced their safety leadership awards in a year they report achieved the lowest recordable incident rate in company history. Mercury Marine Plant 17 Castings was one of four facilities across the world to receive that honor.
“With COVID, certainly there are a lot of new protocols and practices that were put into place in 2020,” said Director of Safety and Occupational Health, Jim Sutton. “In the case of this particular facility,they’ve done a really remarkable job in reducing injuries to a level that was well below even the industry average. So it’s pretty exemplary that way.”
But that’s only scratching the surface. Sutton says the recognition shows the long history of safety efforts being made at that facility.
“It’s really a tribute to a commitment. It’s not something that happens overnight, and it isn’t just within a single year. It’s something that organization’s work on over a long period of time,” Sutton told WTAQ News. “A lot of different inspection programs, machine safety processes, handling of the equipment, and making sure that we’re safe through that. Personal protective equipment and these things are all really critical…The goal is to work safely everyday without having any injuries.”
A major factor for the facility is employee engagement. That’s something Sutton says drives the culture in a facility, and that has a major impact on maintaining an injury-free workplace.
They even take recommendations from people who come up with better ideas while out on the floor.
“It’s a kiosk-based system, so employees can simply go up to a terminal and enter a safety suggestion by swiping their employee badge and providing their observations around situations that might need attention, or ideas that they have,” Sutton explained. “What we were looking to do is just make that job as safe as possible and really get into a much better outcome both with quality and productivity…It’s about quality of life for our employees. It’s commitment to community. And it’s really how we sustain, and sustaining things from a safety standpoint – you can’t ask for much more than that.”
The facility was also recognized by the North American Die-Casting Association, and Sutton says the industry-wide outstanding safety award really validates the internal company award.
The Brunswick Corporation award also comes with a $10,000 grant for the facility to donate to a local charity of its choice. The people who work there get to choose which charities they partner with – which could be shelters, cancer research, or the humane society. It’s unclear exactly where the money from the Fond du Lac facility is going quite yet.
“People within the operation themselves will get to decide how that gets allocated out to different organizations. It shows the community link between what we’re doing here and how it has a strong impact not only on our employees and their families but you know the communities that we operate in as well,” Sutton said.
