Our guest on this week's episode is Duane Duhamel, Director of Health, Safety and Environment at ISN, a provider of contractor and supplier management solutions. OSHA recently released its list of top 10 safety violations. Of course, the violations mean that some things are not being done safely in the workplace – and many of the most common violations occur in transportation and warehouses. We look at what those violations are, why they happen, and what can be done to better assure safety within supply chain operations.
One hangover from the pandemic that has really caused problems is a lingering shortage of computer chips. This is a problem because those chips are a crucial part of so many products in our connected world. The shortage affects production of electronics, but also things like trucks and other vehicles. This week we learned about how some engineering companies are coping with that problem.
There seems to be no shortage of industry products and projects designed to create more environmentally friendly supply chains, and we heard about a new one this week. This is a partnership between industry and academia, specifically Lucas Systems and Carnegie Mellon University. It is designed to address the problem of excess packaging in distribution centers. We share details on the project and how it will be implemented.
CSCMP's Supply Chain Quarterly also offers a podcast series called Supply Chain in the Fast Lane. It is co-produced with the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals. The current series features Transportation Tech. Go to your favorite podcast platform to subscribe and to listen to past and future episodes.
Articles and resources mentioned in this episode:
Podcast is sponsored by: Hyster
Other links
Our guest on this week's episode is Duane Duhamel, Director of Health, Safety and Environment at ISN, a provider of contractor and supplier management solutions. OSHA recently released its list of top 10 safety violations. Of course, the violations mean that some things are not being done safely in the workplace – and many of the most common violations occur in transportation and warehouses. We look at what those violations are, why they happen, and what can be done to better assure safety within supply chain operations.
One hangover from the pandemic that has really caused problems is a lingering shortage of computer chips. This is a problem because those chips are a crucial part of so many products in our connected world. The shortage affects production of electronics, but also things like trucks and other vehicles. This week we learned about how some engineering companies are coping with that problem.
There seems to be no shortage of industry products and projects designed to create more environmentally friendly supply chains, and we heard about a new one this week. This is a partnership between industry and academia, specifically Lucas Systems and Carnegie Mellon University. It is designed to address the problem of excess packaging in distribution centers. We share details on the project and how it will be implemented.
CSCMP's Supply Chain Quarterly also offers a podcast series called Supply Chain in the Fast Lane. It is co-produced with the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals. The current series features Transportation Tech. Go to your favorite podcast platform to subscribe and to listen to past and future episodes.
Articles and resources mentioned in this episode:
Podcast is sponsored by: Hyster
Other links
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 00:01
The top OSHA violations. Dealing with computer chip shortages. And a unique partnership.
Pull up a chair and join us as the editors of DC Velocity discuss these stories, as well as news and supply chain trends, on this week's Logistics Matters podcast.
Hi, I'm Dave Maloney. I'm the group editorial director at DC Velocity. Welcome.
Logistics Matters is sponsored by Hyster Company, a global manufacturer with nearly a century of experience designing forklifts and high-capacity materials handling equipment used in the world’s most intense industries. Operations rely on Hyster as a strong partner for everything from choosing the right motive power source to their Edison Award-winning operator-assist solution, Hyster Reaction. For more information, visit Hyster.com.
As usual, our DC Velocity senior editors Ben Ames and Victoria Kickham will be along to provide their insights into the top stories of this week. But to begin today: OSHA recently released its list of top 10 safety violations, and some of the most common violations occur in transportation and warehouses. To find out the details, I recently spoke to Duane Duhamel. He's the corporate health, safety, and environmental director at ISN, a provider of contractor- and supplier-management solutions. Here now is our conversation.
Thank you, Duane for joining us today. Welcome to Logistics Matters.
Duane Duhamel, Director of Health, Safety and Environment, ISN 01:32
Good afternoon, David, good to be with you.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 01:35
Duane, could you describe the work of ISN for us, if people are not familiar with your company?
Duane Duhamel, Director of Health, Safety and Environment, ISN 01:40
For sure. ISN is the global leader in contractor and supplier information management. We've been around since about 2001, and we're headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and we have 13 global offices. Our global platform with data-driven products and services helps companies manage risk and strengthen their relationship, and our goal is really to bring together our network of over 750 hiring clients and more than 75,000 contractors and suppliers to promote continuous improvement in contractor management, and we're striving to make the workplace safe for everyone.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 02:18
And you're here today to talk about OSHA's recent report on the top 10 safety violations of 2023. You've seen that report. Can you share some details on what it shows?
Duane Duhamel, Director of Health, Safety and Environment, ISN 02:29
For sure. Maybe I'll first start off that there's a significant increase in OSHA hiring additional inspectors, and of course, that increase has resulted in more workplace violations being cited. For this year's list,, there was a dramatic increase overall, as I mentioned, across the board. No new categories this year in the top 10 list. All were repeat offenders from previous years, although the order in which they appear has shifted slightly. OSHA does publish this list every year, and their intent is really to help employers determine areas where their workplaces should focus on to improve worker health and safety. Clearly, there's a lot of work left to be done, particularly from protecting workers with falling down on the job. I will note, David, that one of the particular most-cited workplace standards was around powered industrial trucks. It shows up as number five on the list. And the industries that see the most violations were in warehousing storage as well as in plastic manufacturing. Lastly, I'll say is, this is the 13th consecutive year where falls are among the most common cause of serious work-related violations. Organizations are making improvements and advancements in worker health and safety; however, we still have a lot of work to do. A comprehensive and compliant fall-prevention program, including equipment competency for both hiring clients and their contractors is critical in further reducing this risk.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 04:04
You mentioned powered industrial equipment. Of course, that includes forklifts in our warehousing and transportation industry, but overall supply chain — warehousing and transportation — was mentioned in a couple of the different types of violations. Can you can you kind of zero in on some of the things that are being done wrong in those particular areas?
Duane Duhamel, Director of Health, Safety and Environment, ISN 04:22
Yeah, I think there are higher rates of serious injuries, fatalities, and violations that occur in both the transportation and warehousing industries, and in fact, over the last five years, our own ISN data has been showing that serious injury and fatality rates are 30% higher, on average, than those of other industries and the most closest industry to them. Many of these increases, you know, we can be attributed to just the general nature of the work that's being performed in this industry segment.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 04:59
Can you be a little more specific as [to] the types of injuries that are occurring and how they're related to transportation and warehousing?
Duane Duhamel, Director of Health, Safety and Environment, ISN 05:08
Yeah, I mean, we're seeing, David, contact with equipment and objects as being an outlier for serious injuries and fatalities. That, of course, does translate into pedestrian-forklift collisions. Additionally, in commercial driving and logistics, we do see repetitive strain lower-body injuries are more prolific, and that does translate to what we see from the most common types of driver-related injuries as well.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 05:43
You mentioned these rates are higher over the past five years — 30% higher than the next closest industry on the list. Is it because of the type of work that it is, or is it something to do with the nature of the work or the way training is enforced?
Duane Duhamel, Director of Health, Safety and Environment, ISN 06:00
Yeah, I mean, I think we do see a trend. This is not an anomaly for just one year. We do see this trend year over year, for this particular industry. Couple of interesting statistics for you: Warehouses made up about 1% of the 8 million worksites that OSHA oversees across the nation. However, 2021 injury and illness data shows about 5.5 incidents per 100 workers, which is more than double, or 2.7 incidents per 100 workers across all the different industries. So it's perhaps the nature of the work. In fact, you'll see contracted labor in there, high-turnover type in [those] industries. That's certainly a contributing factor or factors in those types of statistics as well.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 06:58
I was going to ask you about the turnover, and you just brought that up, because both of these industries — transportation, for instance — trucking companies may have a 90% year-over-year turnover in drivers. Warehouse workers also turn over quite a bit. Is it the fact that you have new people coming into the industry all the time, and just a lack of good training and awareness of the safety requirements of those positions?
Duane Duhamel, Director of Health, Safety and Environment, ISN 07:20
Yeah, that's a great question, and you're spot on. You know, typically, we see industries in general that have a high turnover, it is more challenging to keep workers safe, just due to the fluidity of the workforce. Industries that regularly outsource to contractors or have folks that — with a high turnover, as you mentioned, does play a contributing factor. You know, typically, when it comes to worker health and safety, full-time employees that have been there a long time, typically undergo onboarding at the start of their time with the company, ongoing or continuous training and competency recertifications from a driving or a forklift-operator perspective. However, when you introduce high turnover or contractors, they'd be hired for short periods of time. Oftentimes, they're involved in high-risk activities, and they just don't typically received that same extensive certification/competency training that we see with longer-tenured full-time employees.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 08:21
Of course, an emphasis on safety training is critical to maintain the health and safety of workers, but also just monitoring the work that's being done and making sure that things are done in a safe practice. Is that something that's being neglected in a lot of our warehouses and in our transportation arenas?
Duane Duhamel, Director of Health, Safety and Environment, ISN 08:46
Yeah, I do think so, and, you know, obviously, the pillar of worker health and safety is, the bare minimum is complying with legislation or tools that are available to help reduce those serious injuries and fatalities in any industry, but you know, specifically for warehousing and storage as well. A couple of points: I think, learning or leveraging data and analytics is extremely beneficial in reducing injuries in warehouses. Organizations could implement different types of systems for measuring overall health and safety performance, and that looks at data both from a leading- and lagging-indicator perspective. The value of doing this is that the data provides insights into current safety practices or how the work is being completed, and additionally, it could help predict future trends, enabling employers to better understand where the most significant opportunities for improvement over those gaps are.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 09:55
You had mentioned some tools. Can you talk about some specific tools that are available to kind of assist with this?
Duane Duhamel, Director of Health, Safety and Environment, ISN 10:02
Absolutely. You know, I think at the heart of worker engagement and trying to move the bar from a health and safety performance perspective, you know, leaders of organizations should regularly and actively seek feedback from their frontline workers, because frontline workers are the individuals closest to the work, and therefore, closest to the exposure to workplace hazards. I'm thinking about field workers, trades people, supervisors, for that matter. Getting that feedback and engaging the frontline workers can uncover valuable insights on perceptions and safety culture — that's what's happening on the shop floor or in the warehouse, and it really offers a good starting point for organizations to improve their overall culture. Lastly, when we empower individuals to report issues so that leadership can then address and take action, [it] fosters a culture that workers come together, and they can actually build a better and safer working environment.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 11:06
Well, as we know, within our industry, material handling equipment has among the most stringent safety requirements, as well as the equipment itself, a lot of safety is built into those tools, but they have to be able to be actually used in the proper manner for which they're designed. So, a lot of that, I guess, is ongoing training. Same thing with our, with our trucks that we have today. There's so many good safety features on the trucks, but they have to be implemented and used, and people have to learn how to be able to use those tools effectively. How do you help companies to be able to do that?
Duane Duhamel, Director of Health, Safety and Environment, ISN 11:41
For sure, and I think, you know, David, you mentioned, the heart of it is initial training, ongoing training, and then measuring the effectiveness or competency of the worker as well. It's wonderful that we have safety features and redundant systems built in to reduce worker incidents and injuries, but at the heart of it is initial training, ongoing training, and then, as I mentioned, the ongoing evaluation of competency of those workers who operate the equipment as well.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 12:16
Very good advice. We've been talking to Duane Duhamel. He is the corporate health, safety, and environmental director at ISN. Thank you, Duane, for being with us today.
Duane Duhamel, Director of Health, Safety and Environment, ISN 12:27
Thank you for having me, David.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 12:29
Now, let's take a look at some of the other supply chain news from the week. And Ben, you wrote this week about how companies are changing their supply chain strategies to cope with computer chip shortages. Can you share some details? Yeah, I'm glad to. This is part of a greater pattern that we've seen of supply chain disruptions, of course, caused caused by a wide range of variables in recent months that we've all been tracking, and markets have sort of largely adapted to those, in terms of maybe delivery delays or higher prices. But in terms of that chip shortage, that has caused some more enduring problems, because, of course, chips are a crucial part of so many products in our connected and electronic age. And that particularly affects things like trucks and other vehicles, which are so important in supply chain operations. So this week, we learned about how some engineering companies are coping with that lingering problem. This came from a survey that was done by Avnet — they're a global electronic-components distributor that's based in Arizona, — and Avnet found the engineers have reached a sense of optimism around shortages of available IT components. Specifically, nearly three-quarters of global respondents believe that the severity of the component shortage has improved, year over year. However, it's not recovered yet. Also, there are still a lot of different types of electronic components, of course, and certain ones are still hard to find. Also, the survey showed a rising concern about other problems, like market conditions and unforeseen disruptions. Ben, it sounds like conditions are still a bit challenging out there. Did the survey show how companies are dealing with that challenge? Yes, and this part was pretty interesting. Avnet found that the three most common supply chain tactics used to navigate that lack of electronic component availability, were, first seeking alternative sources for parts; second, increasing the buffer inventory of them; and third, increasing the timetable of demand forecasts. So, it all makes sense, and one interesting thing, though, was in the context that shows a shift from their survey of last year, when seeking alternative sources was also the top workaround, but the second tactic last year was to go by beyond the current approved manufacturer list. So, in other words, people were going off list and finding different brands, I guess. So, we're seeing a decrease in that approach. Instead, the engineers are looking at longer-term solutions, like working on improving distributor relationships. So, Avnet said, in their words that the survey results showed that while many may be feeling more positively about getting access to those necessary components, there is what they called trepidation about the future. The researchers said that one thing has become certain, and that is the desire to implement long-term strategies that will help ease the impact of any unforeseen disruptions. So, you know, like we said at the top, getting better slowly in the electronics area, but still trepidation about the future, in other words, Right. Well, it's good to see that there has been some improvement, and of course, we know the federal government, through the CHIPS Act, has been providing funds to invest in more manufacturing capacity to help make sure that that future supply will be there when we need it. Yeah, hopefully makes a difference, but these things take time, so we'll keep an eye on it. Exactly. It may be a little rough for the short term. Thanks, Ben.
Ben Ames, Senior News Editor, DC Velocity 16:10
Glad to.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 16:11
And Victoria, you wrote this week about a partnership focusing on sustainable packaging. Who's getting together in this effort?
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity 16:19
Yes, Dave, that's right. So this is a partnership between industry and academia, and, again, it's designed to address the problem of excess packaging in distribution centers. On Wednesday, Pennsylvania-based warehouse-technology company Lucas Systems announced a partnership with Carnegie Mellon University, which of course is in Pittsburgh, and the groups are joining forces to study new ways of reducing all that paper and cardboard waste that's often generated in DCs. Specifically, they'll be focusing on developing software that can optimize the way DC workers fill and package multiple items for a single order. This is often the source of a lot of waste. I think we've all experienced ordering a handful of small items and having them show up in a huge box stuffed with paper or paper-based fillers. So, this partnership is aimed at getting a better handle on that.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 17:09
Victoria, did you learn about how the partnership will work?
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity 17:13
Yes, it's a collaborative effort between Lucas Systems employees and CMU students. Lucas' data scientists will work with graduate-level students in the University's School of Computer Science, specifically its Software and Societal Systems Department, and they'll be working on software development for optimizing, as I said, order packing and packaging. The program will also contribute to Lucas Systems' ongoing software development efforts as well. As many of our listeners know, Lucas provides warehouse optimization software and voice technology solutions for the industry, and the main focus of that is developing smart software that helps warehouse workers pick and pack orders in ways that are both environmentally conscious and efficient. Both groups emphasize the growing opportunity to develop sustainable solutions for supply chain operations, especially distribution, so it seems like the time is right for this kind of partnership, and this comes at a time when we see a growing focus on sustainability industrywide.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 18:12
Right. It does seem like a good plan for working together. Thanks, Victoria.
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity 18:17
You're welcome.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 18:19
We encourage listeners to go to DCVelocity.com for more on these and other supply chain stories. Also, check out the podcast Notes section for some direct links to read more about the topics that we discussed today.
And again, we'd like to thank Duane Duhamel of ISN for being our guest. We welcome your comments on this topic and our other stories. You can email us at podcast@dcvelocity.com.
We also encourage you to subscribe to Logistics Matters in your favorite podcast platform. Our new episodes are uploaded on Fridays.
Speaking of subscribing, check out our sister podcast series Supply Chain in the Fast Lane, coproduced by the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals and Supply Chain Quarterly. Search for "supply chain in the fast lane" wherever you get your podcasts.
And a reminder that Logistics Matters is sponsored by Hyster. With strength, durability, and their continual focus on safety, Hyster is powering your possibilities. For more information, visit Hyster.com.
We'll be back again next week with another edition of Logistics Matters. Be sure to join us. Until then, have a great week.