VIDEO: Creating a Safer Workplace with Brady

Narrator:

Welcome to Creating a Safer Workplace by MSC Direct featuring the web series "Nothing Stops U.S. Manufacturing. Conversations with Safety Professionals in the Field." Here's your host Anthony Testa.

Anthony Testa:

Welcome to another episode of MSC’s "Nothing Stops U.S. Manufacturing.” Today I’m joined by Courtney  Bohman, Senior Manager of Brady Corporation. Courtney, I want to talk to you a little bit about Brady has great products, but now you're coupling that with services. Let's talk a little bit about that and about you know what's new and when the risk assessments came to life within Brady.

Bohman:

Brady is a 105 plus-year-old company and we were founded on the mission to protect premises, products and people. That is really foundational to everything that we've done and every venture that we've taken extends from that right. So anchored in that mission is this inherent need that everybody that works at Brady has to provide our customers with sustained value over time.

Testa:

So customers a lot of times could say well I could do that, I don't need someone to do this, why is it so important to really get in and have that third-party set of eyes versus having that customer do it on their own?

Bohman:

I think third parties bring a level of objectivity and frankly a wealth of experience that is extremely difficult to capture within a facility. So I look at our field engineers and we've got a team of about 25 out there. And they have worked in these industries for more than 200 years combined. I mean you've got a ton of experience and they've seen pretty much everything that's out there. Now we recognize that there's a ton of value in that subject matter expertise that is owned specifically within that facility so honestly it's that consultative combination of not only understanding what is essential and specific to that particular facility and then combining that and anchoring it in industry best practices so that ultimately that customer gets the best solution.

Testa:

And then just from a customer perspective, when a customer looks at this and says oh I'm too small or oh I'm too big, are there any parameters around what Brady looks for or they can help the smallest customer to the largest.

Bohman:

Yeah, I don't really think anybody's too small or anybody's too big to be quite honest with you. I think the beauty of it is we find out all of that during our scoping calls and you know we're going to try to understand what that customer really needs. Now there may be situations where we go into a conversation and we've realized that you know from a budgetary perspective it might be easier for us to train that customer how to do it themselves if they've only got a couple of pieces of equipment. For other customers, you know, no project’s really too big, we've got resources that we're going to pull from to ensure that you know we're hitting the requirements of that customer and we have the opportunity to see facilities that frankly are just massive.

Testa:

How much time does your team typically put in on one of these and you know just to kind of put it into scope for a safety professional who possibly could be listening right now, how much time from the time they get on site to the time they deliver the procedures, how many man hours are going to that?

Bohman:

Yeah, it's really dependent. We look at it in terms of the number of procedures that we have to write. Specifically, if I think about visual lockout-tagout procedure writing, typically we're going to be able to process through about 50 or so procedures on an average week and that requires not only the collection but also the documentation of those procedures, the back and forth from an approval process with the customer, so we have projects that are routinely, you know, several months in length and so it's a significant time commitment if it's something that a safety professional wants to try to do in-house and it's going to require all of their attention, it's not something you can go back and forth into.

Testa:

Just think about that as a safety professional right, how much time a third party audit or a third party assessment can actually just take off your plate.

Bohman:

And then you know with Brady it's a one-stop shop. You talked about Brady at the beginning of really being a product house and you know when you look at something like lockout-tagout as an example, you've got those services but then in concert with MSC you've got access to all those devices. The padlocks, the tags, everything that you need to ensure that that solution is in place. And then we also have proprietary software to be able to support the sustainability component because that's really key. You know machinery is going to move around, you're going to bring in another piece of equipment and really having something undergirding the solution that is technical in nature like a software platform really helps that customer to have that entire suite, ensure that they're staying up on regulations and ensure that they've got a method to be able to lean into in the event that something changes within their facility.

Testa:

You mentioned before in the beginning that you know that the lockout-tagout procedure piece was where you guys started and really gained your roots, how did that how did that go from that lockout-tagout to that next evolution like an arc flash right so can you just talk a little bit about that and talk a little bit about you know what arc flash is and how dangerous that can be in a facility if it's not done properly?

Bohman:

Absolutely. So you know honestly it all goes back to the customer right, lockout-tagout really came out of a compliance issue that we recognized with our customers, they were struggling with maintaining OSHA compliance. We see lockout constantly in that Top 10. Some of those same customers came back to us and they started talking about arc flash. For everybody that's listening, what an arc flash incident really is is a powerful sudden release of energy that occurs through an electrical arc. So in layman's terms, think of it as an electrical explosion if you will and these incidents still have several causes, but the ones that we see most frequently tend to be either equipment failure or some sort of a connection issue within the electrical system. You know sometimes it's a maintenance issue and oftentimes it is frankly human error.

Testa:

So, without naming names, like when you every time you walk into a facility, how often is it that a customer is out of compliance either with arc flash or a lockout-tagout that you look and say holy cow? So if you do 100 in a year, what percentage of those are not compliant and they need your service?

Bohman:

Yeah, so I think you're definitely probably in that 60 to 75 percent range and the other thing that I would say is there's a difference between being in compliance and having industry best practices that have really been driven down to the employee level. I've seen some really treacherous situations that I don't think have ever really entered into the consciousness of the people that work there because it's just sort of always been that way, where you recognize that, you know, this is unbelievably unsafe but to your point earlier about bringing in a third-party perspective, when you're so close to something and you know you see it every day, you don't realize that there could be some significant impacts to that.

Testa:

You bring that straight through to what you call procedural writing. I mean literally a customer gets a book at the end of this. Can you just go you know talk a little bit about that type of business that you have and what differentiates between just doing the audit and then doing the procedure?

Bohman:

Already what Brady actually specializes in is visual lockout procedure writing and that visual piece is super important because you know when we look at kind of industry best practices if you will as opposed to simply maintaining compliance, what's critical to us is as we put in all of that effort to really build out a sustainable solution, that that is going to be executed not 10 percent of the time or 20 of the time but 100 percent of the time within a facility and it is 100 percent true that pictures are able to convey information that frankly the written word oftentimes can't. And as our facilities become more and more diverse, this has become increasingly more important. We involve the customer in every step of that approval process to ensure that what we've built is going to fulfill their needs and then ultimately at the end of the day you know we go back into that facility, we tag everything, we hang those procedures, and then we ultimately provide a master binder as well to sit in that EH&S office so there's really no excuse in terms of you know not being able to know what those procedures are telling you, where they're at and the like. And we know at the end of the day that the fact that they have those procedures in place, the fact that that arc flash assessment now exists, without being overly dramatic, that that can save somebody's life, that can ensure that somebody has the ability to go home at night, whereas in the past the lack of those safeguards very well could have resulted in something that was you know really significant and unfortunate and you know every person that's on our team realizes when they're going into that facility, what they're doing has incredible consequence and so you know we bring all of the passion, all of the care in the world to every one of these projects to ensure that we do right by our customers.

Testa:

Where can our audience find more information about Brady?

Bohman:

Yeah, I mean I think to learn more about anything that we've talked about really our audience can go reach out to their MSC key account reps, they have all that information they will ensure that the right connections are made so that we can be supportive of whatever those safety needs might be.

Testa:

Awesome. Well Courtney, thank you very much for joining me this afternoon. I totally appreciate your time. This is a great conversation and for the audience stay tuned for the next episode of MSC's “Nothing Stops U.S. Manufacturing”. Thanks.

Narrator:

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