Industries have begun working to full capacity post the national lockdown. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, industries have to implement many additional health, safety, and cleaning precautions in order to ensure the safety of employees, their families, and the distributors/consumers of the products. In line with the guidelines issued by authorities, the following industrial safety practices and precautions are to be followed.
- Production rooms to be wiped during three shifts of the day, ensuring 24-hour sanitization of premises. It is important to use approved cleaning products from a list of disinfectants for use against COVID-19.
- Reviewing the cleaning procedures in case a COVID-positive employee worked over the previous 72 hours since their last shift should be done.
- Additional cleaning action/thorough sanitization of the entire facility to be done if an employee is found to be COVID-positive. If required, the area should be sealed for 48 hours.
- All employees should wear face shields, masks, and PPEs (personal protective equipment) on the manufacturing floor.
- Social distancing to be facilitated by erecting barriers on work floors.
- Sanitization of the premises should be done every two-three hours, especially in the common areas that include lunch rooms and common tables. These will have to be wiped clean with disinfectants after every single-use.
- Tools should not be shared among the employees.
It is important to create awareness of safety steps to be taken from entry to exit in the factory and precautions that need to be taken by employees at a personal level. Awareness material can be –
- Posters encouraging respiratory etiquette, such as covering coughs/sneezes or coughing/sneezing into your upper sleeve instead of the hand
- Posters encouraging frequent washing of hands and hand-sanitization
- Literature/videos training workers on how to properly use and maintain protective clothing and equipment
- Encouraging sick employees to stay home
- Establishing flexible work hours (staggered shifts)
- Daily temperature check of all employees
- Compelling them to wear a face mask (ideally N95) to prevent the spread of the virus
- Providing alcohol-based hand sanitizer (60% alcohol or higher) for employees who do not have access to soap and water
- Encouraging workers to report health concern
- Minimizing entry of the number of people at each facility
- Encouraging employees to work remotely wherever possible
- Restricting the entry of visitors
- Making wearing gloves at all times and encouraging them to avoid touching their face
- On the storage side, factories have to sterilize boxes and wrapping and isolate and sanitize finished goods as required
- Temperature checks for drivers of goods vehicle should be done with every dispatch
Our plant, Shubham Polyspin, at Kadi, Ahmedabad, continues to operate with safety precautions and practices for COVID-19. We are taking a host of precautions to protect our customers and partners by being extra cautious in receiving the raw material, processing, manufacturing, packaging, and storage.
