Why safety is personal at Michigan metal fabricator

Figure 1
During the past decade, Genzink Steel in Holland, Mich., has transformed from a regional job shop into an international, project-based manufacturer of critical equipment, including this shuttle car used in coal mines. This picture was taken in 2011.

In 1986 something happened to Sue Rollins that she doesn’t wish on anybody. Working in the quality and safety department at a previous employer, she was scrubbing the floor during a weekend cleaning project. The stripper used to remove paint mixed with a coating that, unbeknownst to the company, had been applied to the floor years before. This caused a toxic reaction.

“I lost my toenails. It was not a fun experience.”

But lost toenails was nothing compared to what she learned months later, after giving birth to her son, who had been exposed to those chemicals inside the womb. The incident caused her son to have chronic asthma and other health problems, and it also built her outlook on working in manufacturing. Her outlook reflects that of many who have a passion for this business, but it’s rarely discussed, and talking about it may do wonders for manufacturing’s image problem.

Safety and Manufacturing’s Image

Any profession in a plant affects people’s lives. This applies to all aspects of manufacturing—design and engineering, continuous improvement, quality, workmanship—and tying it all together is the most important element of all: safety. A nonchalant attitude toward safety is the wellspring of manufacturing’s poor image. Factory workers of past generations strived and prayed for their children to have a better life. By “better,” they usually meant one in which they weren’t put into harm’s way every day.

Safety is personal, which in itself isn’t a novel view, but Rollins expresses it in a more expansive way. Workmanship affects product quality, and for the products many metal manufacturers make, poor quality leads to serious safety consequences for the ultimate consumer of their products.

This applies to Rollins’ current employer, Genzink Steel, Holland, Mich. During the past decade the company has transformed from a job shop that made simple parts with little documentation and only basic quality requirements into a contract metal manufacturer providing critical products to industries like the rail sector, coal mining, and oil and gas capital equipment suppliers (see Figure 1). A bad weld can put lives on the line, hence the need for nondestructive examination (NDE), material traceability, and comprehensive documentation. The quality department has grown from two to 12 individuals. Most subassemblies that leave Genzink have notebooks attached full of documentation. “Quality Coordinator Jaclyn Nelson ensures all requirements are presented to the customer as specified. That documentation is worth more than the product itself,” Rollins said. “Without it, the part is rejected.”

You can’t inspect quality into a part, and as Rollins sees it, this is where not only worker talent but also perception comes into play. The work isn’t just business. When an assembler places his hands on a platform, he’s working on something that people may well take for granted when they walk across it. Still, a mistake in manufacturing could lead to a fatality.

But “fatality” is the wrong word, really. It’s too dehumanizing for something so important, so personal. If that platform crashes down, a father could die; a wife would lose her soul mate; a daughter may walk down the aisle alone on her wedding day.

“I tell the guys, ‘Someday you’re going to walk down the aisle with your daughter, and you’re going to want to hold her hand,’” Rollins said. “Or, ‘If you don’t wear your safety glasses, you may not be able to see your daughter standing at the altar someday.’ You make it personal.”

Unfortunate Experience

The chemical injury that changed Rollins’ life occurred while working at a larger manufacturer in 1986. At that time her employer was starting to comply with the recently enacted Worker Right to Know laws, and it sent Rollins for training after her injury. This experience gave her certain OSHA certifications that would come into play later in life.

Figure 2
Sue Rollins joined Genzink in 2007 as an estimator, and within weeks became manager of both quality and safety.

Shortly after this she took a few years off to have her family. Once her kids reached school age, she went to work for a small powder coating company. After the business owner encountered some financial troubles, the owner of the building approached Rollins. “He said, ‘Why don’t you come run this place for me?’ I put a little money on the table, and we became partners, with the understanding that I would buy him out over a period of time,” Rollins said.

That’s when she gained experience on various aspects of running a small business, including estimating, training, quality, and, of course, safety. But, like anyone else, her personal life affected her professional one. Instead of buying her partner out, she took a different direction. “As a single mom, when it came time to [buy out the business], I was a little reluctant to make that kind of investment by myself, so he bought me out instead, and that’s when I came to Genzink.”

Initially she was hired on as an estimator in 2007, but her prior experience made her a valuable player at Genzink, which CEO John Maxson described then as a “regionally based job shop,” and not the “focused, disciplined, project-based manufacturing company” it is today. Parts leaving the plant left with a simple order card, not notebooks full of documentation.

Just a week after Rollins was hired, a manager walked by her desk and asked her to help with an AISC audit (see Figure 2). She had developed an ISO system at her powder coating company, and the experience helped her hit the ground running at Genzink. When she completed the audit successfully, and because she had the right experience, she was offered the position of quality manager. Because Rollins held certifications from OSHA, she became the company’s safety coordinator. And because she had experience running a powder coating operation, she soon became the finishing department manager. As Rollins recalled, “I went from being an estimator to a manager of three areas in a very short period.”

Time of Transformation

Rollins had landed a job at Genzink at a time of transformation, and as Maxson put it, “She was instrumental in making it all happen.” Today Rollins no longer runs the finishing department; the company has grown to the point where the coating operation needs a dedicated manager. Now she works as quality assurance manager and safety coordinator, and she still covers safety throughout the plant.

She wrote the company’s safety manuals, some of them from scratch, specifically defining duties. “Employees have defined responsibilities, and management has defined responsibilities, and they feed off each other,” she said. “Management has the responsibility to provide what the employee needs, and employees have the responsibility to tell what they need. [Genzink employees] Cam Short and Todd Johnson play key roles as Michigan OSHA Level I certificate holders.

“It’s not always about compliance,” she continued. “It’s also about practicality and about ways they can become more efficient and safer, so they don’t miss time from work.”

She has since worked both with suppliers and customers to ensure safe practices throughout the supply chain. It’s something Genzink’s major customers now demand. Every job that leaves the fabricator has a safety record attached to it. And the transparency continues up the supply chain. If a safety incident occurs at a supplier making or shipping a product to Genzink, it’s documented.

The safety committee—with members from across the company—meets regularly now (see Figure 3). And when anyone on Rollins’ quality and safety department walks the shop floor, they check for both quality and safety, and their inspections show just how intertwined quality and safety are (see Figure 4). “With new hires, we tell them that we build safety into the part,” she said, “and by building safety into the part, the quality comes by default.”

Her team also has input during the estimating stage. They review the job and address any safety concerns upfront. In effect, safety concerns are intertwined with all shop processes, from taking the order to shipping it out the door.

Figure 3
Sue Rollins (front row, third from right) and the company’s safety committee pose for Genzink’s third consecutive annual safety award from its insurance provider, Archway Insurance. (Back row: Paul Long, Tim Skirnski, Bill Bosio, Andrew Zandstra, Joe Fryar, Jason Rouwhorst, Todd Johnson; Front row: Cam Short, Jesse Cruz, Gordon Jones, Brandon Fuller, award presenter Tracy Morely, Emelio Garcia, Sue Rollins, Adriana Gonzalez, and Jaclyn Nelson.

A Choice of Words

The challenge for Rollins, and really anyone in manufacturing, is to humanize this dry, seemingly tedious documentation, and it boils down to good communication and choice of words. It’s about rules and procedures, but at the heart is empathy. “When an employee gets hurt, it’s not just that employee that suffers,” she said. “It’s hard to see somebody get hurt, to stand next to him and help bandage that person up. Then there’s all the second-hand requirements that come along with the report, answering questions about what you saw during the follow-up investigations. It’s stressful on people. And these guys work together. They’re all friends, and they hang out after work. You don’t want to see anybody get hurt.”

If there were any silver linings to the Great Recession, better communication would be it. “When we had the big slowdown, everything got skinny,” Rollins said. “So all of us wore more hats, and communication tends to be good when that happens.”

Good communication led to change, and it led Genzink to hiring and expanding its welding expertise. In 2007 the operation had no certified welding inspectors (CWI), and today it has four, including one Level III inspector who monitors the company’s entire NDE program. The program may well be expanding in years to come, and Rollins, along with NDE coordinator George Moore, is part of the team prepping current employees about potential expansions and career opportunities.

This all makes for happier employees, keeps them engaged, and keeps it personal. It prevents that disconnect between home life and work life. People care about careers and about each other’s well-being and safety on and off the clock. “When we do harness and lanyard safety for new hires, I always tell them, if you’re going to work on your roof this weekend, and you need to borrow this, you just let me know,” she said. “I’d rather have you tied off than you not make it to work on Monday, and not be there for your kids.”

She emphasized the last part, and considering her life story, it’s easy to understand why.

“My son has health issues to this day because of my exposure [to chemicals],” she explained, adding that the occurrence wasn’t anybody’s fault. The company didn’t know about the coating in the floor, applied decades earlier. Rollins doesn’t point fingers or hold grudges. But she said the incident has made her dedicated to good communication, documentation, and empathy.

“Safety is extremely personal for me. When I have to tell my story at work, it’s very difficult for me. I do not want anybody to go through with their family what I went through with mine. I need them to understand that, and making safety and quality personal is the best way to hit home.”

Figure 4
When Rollins’ team performs shop floor inspections, they address both safety and quality concerns, and the two are often intertwined.