The Secret to Building Morale by Maintaining Your Plant

If a potential customer does a walk-through at your plant and the first thing they notice is grease on the floor, trashcans overflowing or junk lying around, let’s face it, their first impression of you will not be a good one.

The way they see it, is that if a company doesn’t take care of their own equipment, then they for sure won’t care about you. It’s not only beneficial to maintain your plant for appearance sake, but also to ensure safety for your employees, as well as increase your productivity. When doing this, you might also find areas that need improvement that aren’t as obvious on the surface.

Over the years, plants have fallen victim to alternative cleaning methods that don’t thoroughly clean nor maintain their life spans. It’s important to have methods, strategies and procedures in place for plant maintenance in order to keep everything running efficiently. If somewhere down the line something goes wrong and machines stop working and production comes to a halt, it can be financially damaging.

No matter what type of shop you have, safety should be a top priority. If machines are leaking or wires and cables are on the ground, this can be a disaster waiting to happen. By showing employees that you care about them and their working conditions, it will boost the morale and employees will feel appreciated, valued and a part of a team.

Also, by including your employees in the upgrading process, they will have more pride and want to take care of the equipment. They treat it as if it was their own.

Even if you don’t have the finances or the need to purchase a new machine, you can still do an upgrade by cleaning it or innovating new ways to improve productivity and safety. When getting things ready, having a Pre-Plan List in place will make the process run much smoother.

Here are a few things to include in the Pre-Plan Checklist:

• How long it will take to clean or upgrade
• How many shifts you will need
• The number of people per shift
• What needs to be accomplished by the end of each shift
• Leaders who can give direction
• Job Safety Analysis (JSA)

If you are repainting, don’t take the easy way out by choosing a dark color like black. Instead, choose a color like light grey or white so that the dirt won’t go unnoticed. Also, bright colors like yellow will help safety areas standout.

Also while you’re doing the upgrades think outside the box and come up with new solutions to see where the leaks are coming from or how to safely store wires or anything lying on the ground. It’s important to use this time to iron out all the kinks so that your plant will run faster and more efficient.

Having a clean and thoroughly marked facility allows for a safe working environment, which in turn causes increased efficiency, less accidents and a higher morale that could ultimately increase profits to the bottom line.