At CDW in 2005, we were processing over 33,000 cartons a day, which meant a lot of box lifting. Back injuries skyrocketed, reaching their highest annual levels, at 157, for our Vernon Hills and North Las Vegas distribution centers. Marking the highest level in company history, the cost of lost production and injuries reached a staggering $1.6 million. We knew that something needed to be done immediately for the safety of our coworkers. Without immediate action, morale would continue to suffer and the costs associated with lost work days, productivity and overtime costs would continue to rise.

The CDW Safe Lifting Program
To start a new “Safe Lifting” program, our first step was to look internally. CDW has a fitness center at our Vernon Hills facility that provides training to our coworkers on a regular basis. We realized we could utilize this facility to train our coworkers on safe lifting. In 2006, we began working with members of the fitness center management team to help us with this new program. Together we studied movements of coworkers, work station positions and conveyor height, making on-site observations. Then we implemented stretching exercises prior to each shift to ensure coworkers would be warmed up for safe lifting. These recommended changes were deployed into the safe lifting training, which we conducted for all Vernon Hills coworkers in the warehouse using real products.

These two improvements alone — safe lifting training and stretching exercises — had a major impact on our injury problems. Back injuries in 2006 declined to 128 annually, an 18% decrease. This was an improvement, but we realized that for the safety of our coworkers, more needed to be done.

Next, in August 2007 we contracted the injury prevention company FIT (Future Industrial Technologies) to analyze our distribution centers. FIT conducted its own analysis of our work environment and discovered that there were more improvements that could be made. Through FIT, we purchased portable lifting equipment designed to lift and move heavier servers and printers and place them near our technician work benches. For those areas which did not have this portable lifting equipment, we implemented a mandatory two-person lift for any product over 70 pounds, the weight in which injuries started occurring. This was monitored by supervisors and managers to ensure coworkers followed the new protocol. Then an interactive safe lifting training program was implemented and conducted annually by FIT training personnel to refresh training and keep the new initiatives top-of-mind.

As a bonus to this program and as inspiration for its continued success, we developed the incentive reward programs for coworkers. As part of the program, any coworker that remained accident-free during a quarter received a $25 gas card, and those who remained accident free for a year received an extra paid day off as well as a safety t-shirt. As proof to our success and the incentive program, we gave away 432 t-shirts in Vernon Hills and 96 in North Las Vegas in 2007.
After making these changes, we noticed a dramatic decrease in back injuries. In 2007, back injuries dropped to 95 annual cases, a 25% decrease from 2006. Costs of these injuries dropped to $414,000, an 80% decrease from 2005. In 2008 Q1, with a carton count of 40,000 a day, injuries are down 65% from 2007 and costs down two percent.

Of course, one back injury is still too many at CDW. Our goal is to reduce this down to zero.

Results
After making these changes, we noticed a dramatic decrease in back injuries. In 2007, back injuries dropped to 95 annual cases, a 25% decrease from 2006. Costs of these injuries dropped to $414,000, an 80% decrease from 2005. In 2008 Q1, with a carton count of 40,000 a day, injuries are down 65% from 2007 and costs down two percent.
Jeff Todd is the Director of Security & Safety at CDW. If you have any questions you’d like addressed in an upcoming Best Practices column, please send them to amanda.c@rbpub.com, and we will see that they get forwarded to CDW for possible inclusion in a future column.