Safety: From top to shop floor Published March 28, 2011 By Faye Banks-Anderson 78th ABW/PA ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. -- Sometimes adversity brings out the best in people. This is certainly true for members of the 402nd Commodities Maintenance Group. The CMXG formed its own Environmental Safety and Occupational Health Office after the Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited the WR-ALC for a number of safety violations. The office's primary objective is to help address these issues, and team members have focused their efforts on developing and standardizing operation processes with "buy in" from unit leadership, workers, union representatives and others. "Developing and documenting processes will enhance employee safety, and the only way for us to do that is by working together" said Josh Campbell, ESOH team leader. The team has definitely put its money where its mouth is by: Developing improved housekeeping procedures for shops, break areas and sanding booths, including wearing correct Personal Protective Equipment while cleaning. Decreasing the group's sanding footprint. Working with bioenvironmental engineering to obtain regular wipe samples in areas which have the potential for surface dust contamination. Communicating and training members on new procedures. Improving the bio survey process so non-compliance issues are addressed quicker, and ensuring workers and supervisors are aware of survey requirements. "Everything which has happened with OSHA has helped us learn and grow," said Kati Falzone, a contractor and one of the team's members. "We've evolved so much from where we started, but we're still learning daily what we need to do," she said. For example, Falzone said sometimes the team develops processes which seem great but don't work well on the shop floor. "This is why it is so important we work together to come up with the smartest solutions," she said. One area team members, workers and supervisors are excited about is the centrally-located ESOH page on the group's SharePoint site. The site is accessible to all Robins 2K users. This database of information is available so it can be incorporated in other organizations which are looking to benchmark what the team learned over the past 10 months. "Everything we have on here is the standard today," Campbell said. "Hopefully it can be deployed across the base and to other air logistics centers."