What’s all the hoopla about?

Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream is the cream of the crop when it comes to plant safety

by Paul V. Arnold

I scream. You scream. We all scream for ice cream.

It’s a cute rhyme, but ice cream is nothing to scream about.

That’s one of the principles helping Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream and its Southwest Operations Center (SWOC) in suburban Los Angeles achieve world-class safety numbers.

“Nothing we do is worth someone getting hurt,” says Todd Grempel, Dreyer’s regional manager for risk and safety. “We make great ice cream, no doubt about it, but it’s only ice cream. We don’t have to get hurt making the product.”

Work-related injuries and illnesses are rare at SWOC, which features a production facility in City of Commerce and a distribution facility in neighboring City of Industry.

SWOC had no recordable injury or illness cases for the first six months of 2004. In previous years, it had marks of 2.7 cases per 100 full-time employees in 2003, 2.6 in 2002, 2.0 in 2001 and 0.7 in 2000. The 2003 ice cream and frozen desserts industry average was 8.8.

The International Dairy Foods Association noted that industry leadership in June by naming SWOC the safest medium-sized ice cream plant in the United States. By the way, the 345-member IDFA also cited Dreyer’s as tops in the large plant (Fort Wayne, Ind.) and small plant (Salt Lake City) categories.

Dreyer’s sweeping success is the result of its Grooves culture (CLICK HERE to read the sidebar “Shake your Grooves thing: A very tasty corporate culture”). Think of Grooves as the ice cream bowl that, in the area of plant safety, holds heaping scoops of instruction, assessment and prevention techniques, empowerment and recognition, which the company calls Hoopla.

Safety isn’t the flavor of the day. Dreyer’s weighs safety and people-related issues equal to other corporate drivers (quality, cost, new products/processes and customer delight) on its pentagon-shaped metric chart called “the cobweb.”

“It’s part of how we do business,” says Grempel. “Safety isn’t separate. It’s not, ‘Make ice cream and work safely.’  It’s a given. It’s not compromised. It’s not sacrificed. It’s in everything we do.”

Through these doors
As workers arrive at the City of Commerce production site each day, the first thing they see is a sign posted inside the gated entry that reads “Through these doors pass the best ice cream makers in the world.”

You would think that ice cream makers, especially the best ones, face safety issues on par with those of your local Good Humor man. But there’s a reason why case rates exceed 9 for many of Dreyer’s peers.

Passing through those entry doors exposes workers to:
• confined space and fall hazards (maintenance and production employees work on and inside storage tanks and vessels);
• a different kind of fall hazard (a 56-ounce carton of ice cream that falls off an overhead conveyor packs a wallop);
• anhydrous ammonia (the chief refrigerant in the process) and cleaning chemicals (some are acidic or caustic);
• wet conditions (water from washing down equipment and cleansing pipes is regularly on the production floor);
• extreme temperatures (pasteurizing heats liquids to 160 degrees F; warehouse employees work in a room chilled to minus-40);
• lifting challenges (a box of chocolate chips weighs 35 pounds);
• constantly moving transport vehicles (powered industrial trucks, forklifts and pallet jacks); and,
• noise (from large mixers, carton fillers and conveyors).

Amid these conditions, SWOC safely produces a half-million gallons of ice cream each week.

From the beginning
At SWOC, safety is the first thing said and the first thing heard.

“It starts when each new hire enters the building,” says plant manager John Pritchard. “As part of their initiation/orientation, I get up to an hour with them to talk about safety, our responsibilities, how it resides in all of us and the importance of making sure everyone walks out of work the same way that they come in.”

This begins an education process that he relates to “erasing your mind and starting over from zero.”

“We spend almost the entire first week doing nothing but safety orientation stuff,” he says.

This includes a two-day, 16-hour training session conducted by safety coordinator Sly Williams on topics such as personal protective equipment (PPE), hazard communication, lifting techniques, lockout/tagout, hand safety, fall protection and reporting unsafe acts.

“All of my past employers combined didn’t provide that much training,” says production worker Joey Gallegos. “On your first day at those places, it was usually a remark like, ‘Be careful.’  Then they’d slap you on the back and say, ‘Now go out there and work.’”

Every new hire at SWOC also receives a letter signed by Pritchard that states his commitment toward a safe work environment.

The focus on safety doesn’t fade after initiation.

Prior to every work shift, employees from all disciplines meet for 15 minutes to discuss concerns, opportunities and solutions tied to plant safety, production and maintenance. These front-line workers rotate as the pre-shift meeting leader. As with every meeting that takes place on SWOC grounds, the first topic is safety.

Following the discussion, a worker leads the group through a series of stretching exercises designed to reduce the risk of soft tissue and muscle injuries. The regimen was created by a local physical therapist.

“The stretches don’t take that long,” says production worker Anne Rakip, the stretching leader on this particular day. “They cover most every part of the body. Instead of going out there cold and having to bend or lift, we go out warmed up.”

Taking the lead
Hourly workers are out front in every facet of the safety program (as well as the programs for quality, cost-control, reliability, etc.), whether it’s as a meeting leader, stretching leader, team leader, process owner or identifier/recommender/purchaser of PPE and other MRO products.

“The two most powerful words in the English language are ‘you decide,’” says company CEO Gary Rogers. “There’s a high expectation of our employees. We hire only the top 20 percent (of job candidates), and we expect them to stay in that 20 percent. We expect our employees to find something they can own here. It’s not an option.”

Williams sums up the “expectation” policy: “We want decision-makers, not just employees.”

To that end, employees such as Gallegos and warehouse worker Paul Eldred join managers as Designated Safety Leaders. DSLs, which help comprise the plant’s Safety Leader-ship Team, spend at least six hours per month on tasks that include:
• department inspections;
• investigating hazards, incidents, first-aid cases and accidents;
• writing and following up on risk- and safety-related work orders;
• completing corrective actions;
• performing job safety analyses and job hazard evaluations;
• safety training;
• providing feedback.

Feedback is critical to changing improper safety practices and reinforcing proper ones.

“You have to be an effective communicator,” says Eldred. “I provide helpful reminders. I might tell someone, ‘I see you are wearing your hard hat, but you forgot to wear your safety glasses.’  It’s not threatening. It’s done to help.”

On the flip side, Eldred and others will supply a pat on the back to someone wearing appropriate PPE. That pat is among the many forms of Hoopla (see sidebar at left) given by and to plant employees.

“It takes people, especially a new employee, a while to realize that not all feedback is bad,” says engineer Steve Ray.

Another team-based approach is the Ergonomics Task Force, which includes eight front-liners plus Grempel, Williams and technical operations manager Ernie Ahumada. The group’s mission is to identify, evaluate and eliminate ergonomic hazards in order to prevent injuries and comply with the California OSHA ergonomics standard. One method is to work with OEM and MRO suppliers to identify new products that address specific strain issues faced by production or maintenance workers.

Team members and other front-liners also work closely with MRO suppliers to select and purchase PPE.

“The safety leadership team does a job evaluation and comes up with all of the related hazards and control measures, which includes PPE,” says Williams. “Todd and I give the regulatory (OSHA, ANSI, etc.) boundaries, and they select from there.”

It’s equal parts compliance and empowerment.

“We’ll buy three or four different styles of safety glasses and offer those to everyone,” says Eldred. “We’ll tell them, ‘Pick one of these. Pick the most comfortable; the one that you need to do your job.’”

Everyone leaves happy.

“Take hard hats,” says Grempel. “Some people select a generic one. Others pick one with a patriotic or football team logo. If it gets them to wear the PPE, it’s fine with me.”

Ideas and failing forward
One of Pritchard’s favorite sayings is: “The more people you get involved, the better the decision.”

Employees have used that to the plant’s advantage. Everyone at SWOC is on the lookout for solutions to issues they encounter. But if you are looking for an idea box, you won’t find one.

“An anonymous suggestion program would be counterculture to us,” says Grempel. “Our culture stresses talking about issues and solutions, and acting upon them.”

So, the problem with cartons of ice cream falling off the overhead conveyor? One employee developed a netting solution that catches wayward cartons.

Production worker James Hender-son designed a table to improve safety associated with assembly and disassembly of dairy valves.

Another worker is helping convert rounded tank steps to flat ones in order to alleviate foot soreness from frequent climbing.

Maintenance workers are using predictive tools such as infrared thermography to identify minor mechanical problems before they become major ones.

And, Gallegos developed a safety focus and action plan board to list improvement projects, the project’s owner, and the short-term and long-term solutions.

“The people working on those particular jobs know exactly what’s wrong and how to fix it,” says Rakip. “I like that it’s the workers who are making the fixes.”

Many times, employees create the short-term solution that allows engineers time to develop one that’s lasting. If an employee’s solution doesn’t pan out, that’s OK, too.

“We want employees to take an intelligent risk, to experiment, to fail forward” says Williams. “Fail forward means ‘try it.’  If it doesn’t work, learn from it.”

Dreyer’s stresses learning at the individual and group level. One of SWOC’s critical safety tools is the wellspring of knowledge located at other Dreyer’s plants.

“Our company shares the wealth, both the good and the bad,” says Williams. “If other plants have good ideas, they share that. And, if a plant has a safety incident, they let everyone know what happened and what can be done so it doesn’t happen anywhere else.”

The pyramid principle
While many of the components of SWOC’s plant safety program are outlined in this case study, perhaps the most fitting way to conclude it is to see how all of the individual pieces fit together. Getting individual bites of almonds, marshmallows and chocolate ice cream is good, but only when everything is mixed together do you get Rocky Road, a Dreyer’s creation.

The company calls this total safety picture its risk and safety pyramid.

“The pyramid defines how we approach safety,” says Grempel. Greg Molloy, Dreyer’s director of risk and safety, explains.

“There are about 10 recordable injuries for every reported major injury,” he says. “We observe 30 first-aid cases and about 600 property damage/near-miss incidents for every major injury. At the base of the triangle, we see a ratio of one major incident to 9,000 unsafe behaviors. For us to achieve improved safety results, we must shrink the base — address unsafe behavior before someone gets hurt.”

These efforts should lead to few consequences at the top of the pyramid.

Fewer consequences mean fewer injuries. Fewer injuries is a cause for great Hoopla, safety awards and . . . perhaps a big bowl of ice cream.

This article appeared in the August/September 2004 issue of MRO Today magazine. Copyright, 2004.

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