TOTAL LOSS CONTROL – A PROFITABILITY
CONCEPT
by: Robert E. Sheriff, CIH, CSP
CEO & President
Atlantic Environmental
Most organizations feel the only realistic
way to increase profits is to increase volume.
Not only is this not true often it is counterproductive
– Profit margins fall and even gross profits
fall when companies try to expand!
Why! Growth, especially rapid growth, leads
to more raw material waste, less productive
personnel due to lack of skill and training,
reduced products quality (more rejections),
more down time, more unscheduled equipment repairs,
more accidents, more injuries, increased insurance
costs and increased administration. Remember
even recycling raw materials, or rejected product
results in double processing.
Profits can be increased without increasing
production! If all unplanned events in the
entire business process can be reduced, costs
are reduced and profit margins increase.
This concept is called
Total Loss Control.
Total Loss Control is a concept of accident
prevention and investigation which takes into
account anything that interferes with perfect
movement of raw materials - and services - to
a final product.
Traditional safety addresses accidents and
injuries as an indication of future problems
that need to be corrected to achieve regulatory
compliance and injury/illness prevention. Total
Loss Control doesn’t wait for the accident or
injury to occur but uses “near misses” and “incidents”
that only luckily did not result in injury -
unscheduled interference with production or
service, and plain old anticipation of what
could go wrong.
These are some basic premises that must be
accepted for a Total Loss Control effort to
be successful.
- All accidents and injures are preventable.
- Reducing unplanned events reduces the
possibility that events will lead to an
accident or injury – playing the odds.
- Everyone in the organization must be a
part of the loss control effort – President
to worker
The safety person is not the person responsible
for safety! He/she is only the implementer
of safety and health measures.
Management, Supervisors and Workers are
responsible for safety. If the President
does not demand Total Loss Control, and leaves
it up to some else – nothing will happen.
If Supervisors don’t accept responsibility
for seeing their workers are trained, motivated,
properly equipped and supervised – nothing
will happen. If employees don’t understand
that the right way is not the fastest way
or the easiest way – but the safest way –
nothing will happen.
- Has not been properly evaluated for
the ability to do the job
- Not properly trained
- Not properly motivated to do the work
safely
- Lacks effective supervision
- Was not properly trained
- Was not properly supervised
- The task is poorly designed and the
person must risk injury to do the task
- An ergonomic problem exists such as
work speed, body position, weight of materials,
lighting or protective equipmen
The concept of Total Loss Control has been
achieved by many organizations which have resulted
in their leading their business in profitability
and growth. Often Total Loss Control has resulted
in a business survival when all others have
failed.
Growth is not the only means to increase profits
– in fact it may spell doom for those who have
not developed a Total Loss Control philosophy.
