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OSHA Gives Anthony Forest Products Sixth Safety Award
 Anthony Forest Products' laminating plant in Washington, Ga. received the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Safety and Health Achievement Recognition Program (SHARP) award earlier this month in recognition of its exemplary safety and health management system.
With this award, the company has obtained SHARP status for all six of its facilities, including sawmills in Atlanta, Texas and Urbana, Ark.; chip mills in Plain Dealing, La. and Troup, Texas; and a laminating plant in El Dorado, Ark.
Anthony spent approximately $50,000 between 2001 and 2006 on safety improvements and employee training costs.
During those five years, OSHA estimates that the company saved $1 million by working with OSHA’s On-Site Consultation Program.
Employers who participate in the free consultation service, which is largely funded by OSHA, can find out about potential hazards at their work sites, improve their occupational safety and health management systems and even qualify for a one-year exemption from routine OSHA inspections.
Anthony has participated in the SHARP program since 1998. Prior to that time, its Workers’s Compensation Experience Modifier Rate (EMR) was almost 1.0. The EMR began to decline after the initiation of a formal safety program with OSHA and it continued to drop to 0.63, providing cost savings from a reduction in workers compensation premiums.
Kim Winfrey, Anthony’s employee health and safety coordinator, said that OSHA’s on-site consultation was helpful with its monitoring of employees throughout the Washington, Ga. plant. “Engineered improvements were made in each department as a result of the analyzed data,” she said. “All of the On-Site Consultation representatives were very thorough, helpful and knowledgeable of all the issues during the process."
The Georgia laminating plant has logged in more than 630,000 work hours since it began working with the OSHA program, with no lost time due to injuries. The facility’s Days Away, Restricted and/or Transferred case rate (DART) was 2.34 in 1998 and is now zero.
Headquartered in Eldorado, Ark., with about 450 employees, Anthony Forest Products Company is a member of the National Council of the Housing Industry — The Supplier 100 of NAHB.
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