Risk! I don’t have to explain the concept of risk to any of our GAWDA member company owners. They deal with it every day because they are in business. What I do need to talk about is how to reduce that risk in the areas that I deal with: DOT, OSHA, EPA and Homeland Security, along with cylinder filling and cylinder requalifications.
Fellow GAWDA consultant Tom Badstubner and I just completed another compliance seminar. Held at member company Weldcoa, it was a duplicate of the seminar held at Chart earlier this spring. This year, our information was all about surviving Department of Transportation and Food and Drug Administration audits. Next year, we will be doing training emphasizing safety and risk in plant operations. These seminars are a great way to help your company manage compliance risk. Getting someone in your company trained and getting them involved in the different compliance issues facing businesses today is important.
Member Benefit: Consultant Access
GAWDA has a lot of ways to help members to comply with regulatory issues. The best way for any company to investigate the available programs is to contact the appropriate GAWDA consultant. Your membership gives you free access by phone or email to ask any questions that you may have.
As GAWDA consultants, once we are contacted, we can quickly give you an answer and provide you with many materials on just about any subject on your mind.
The GAWDA website is another great place to get help. Archived on that site are many years’ worth of compliance materials on a variety of issues. All you have to do to access that information is get an ID and password from GAWDA headquarters. That access will provide you with many years of published DOT, safety, medical gas and food gas articles. It also will let you obtain all the sample safety practices that GAWDA’s Safety Committee has put together over the years.
Get the Safety Organizer, Too
While you are asking for your ID and password, be sure to ask to be placed on the Safety Organizer mailing list. That will place all the monthly consultant articles right in your email in-basket each month.
As far as DOT subject matter, GAWDA consultants also have put together an excellent GAWDA Driver Training Manual. The manual makes an excellent driver safety meeting training tool that member companies can use in-house. If a company conducts training on one of the six chapters every two months, all your drivers would be fully trained in one year’s time through this program of simple safety meetings. The manual offers a test with each chapter. If you would like a copy of this manual, just send me an email and I will be glad to send it along.
Is Your Head in the Sand?
Are you ready for an audit?
Don’t keep putting your head in the sand hoping that prospect will go away. I can assure you, it won’t. Still hoping that you won’t be noticed? I can assure you that you will be. Remember, as a business that is carrying hazardous materials over highways, your trucks are high profile. It’s a certainty that if you have a serious accident, you will be investigated.
Increase Your ‘Sleep Factor’
Sleep factor — you know what that is. Every business owner and employees in charge or managing risk want to sleep better at night knowing that they are properly managing their company risks. I want to assure you that, no matter how much out of compliance you may be, getting back on track and in good compliance standing really is a lot easier than you think. Call your consultants now for help — and get started on that path.
If you ever have any questions regarding these subjects, please contact me.
