(Savannah, Georgia – April 30, 2019) – Great Dane today announced that its manufacturing facility in Jonesboro, Arkansas, has won the 2018 Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association’s (TTMA) Plant Safety Contest for Category A. This category includes facilities that work more than 750,000 man-hours per year.
“Jonesboro’s leadership team made a commitment to develop a culture of safety within the plant,” said Brian Sage, Great Dane’s executive vice president of Manufacturing. “The entire Jonesboro team got behind this initiative and committed to making the necessary changes to create a safe work environment and build a strong culture of safety.”
The Jonesboro facility employs more than 450 people and amassed more than 1 million hours without a lost time incident in 2018. Along with Great Dane’s other manufacturing facilities, the Jonesboro plant has implemented a strong 5S program as well as a Behavior-Based Safety (BBS) program to help improve housekeeping within the facility and create a safer work environment. This is the third TTMA Plant Safety Award for the Jonesboro facility and the 39th total award for Great Dane since the contest began in 1971.
“Creating a culture of safety requires dedication from everyone in a facility to make thoughtful decisions, to use the proper tools and to follow the correct processes,” Sage said. “The Jonesboro team has demonstrated what it takes to be the best in safety of all large trailer plants in the industry. I am extremely proud of all they have accomplished and congratulate them on this outstanding accomplishment.”
The TTMA recognizes the importance of safety and desires to acknowledge organizations that are achieving excellence in this area. Great Dane is a proud member of the TTMA and has had several employees serve in various leadership roles within the organization. Rick Mullininx, Great Dane’s executive vice president of Engineering is a former chairman of the board for TTMA, and Dave Ritchie, Great Dane’s Environmental Health and Safety director, is currently the chairman of the TTMA’s Safety Committee.
The Plant Safety Contest is a competition among all trailer manufacturers who are members of the TTMA. Plants are scored on the number of recordable injury rates, lost work day cases, and Days Away, Days Restricted or Days Transferred (DART) due to injuries per 100 employees. The award determinations are based on direct comparison of injury data from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) Annual Summary Form 300A.
