American businesses reported more than 2.9 million nonfatal workplace injuries in 2016, the latest year for which data is available, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The manufacturing space saw the highest number of injuries, maintaining an industry-wide injury and illness incidence rate of roughly 4 occurrences per 100 workers. However, safety standards within the sector have improved drastically over the last decade, with employers implementing protocols and engineering solutions that reduced injuries by more than 30 percent. That said, manufacturers can do more to improve safety on shop floors as evidenced by the OSHA workplace fatality injury statistics from 2016, which revealed that 318 employees in the industry lost their lives while performing their duties.

There are, of course, numerous options available. Some manufacturing firms are embracing a remedy that both improved shop floor safety and directly buttresses the bottom line: enterprise resource planning software. These solutions allow firms to develop and deploy data-backed workflows that increase production and produce insights that can be used by maintenance staff and safety stakeholders to enhance workplace conditions. How?

Maintaining safe staffing levels
An estimated 20 percent of the individuals employed in the U.S. are shift workers, according to research from the BLS. These professionals are at the mercy of their employers, working schedules they have little power to change. Sometimes, such employees, especially those working nights, experience Shift Worker Disorder. Symptoms include depression, insomnia and tiredness, researchers for the National Sleep Foundation found. As much as 29 percent of night- and rotating-shift workers may suffer from the condition, the NSF reported.

Employees with this condition compromise shop floor safety, putting themselves and their coworkers at risk for injury. Manufacturing companies that leverage ERP technology to right-size and optimize their operations can reduce the need for physically and mentally staffing practices and thereby lessen the likelihood of injuries or fatalities linked to worker fatigue.

Addressing problematic equipment
Contact with equipment was among the most common injury causes within the manufacturing space in 2016, the BLS found. Why are so many production workers sustaining injuries from the tools they use to do their work? An industry-wide lack of investment in shop floor machinery, according to Industry Week. While manufacturers may not have the capital to replace mission-critical equipment, they are able to implement software that reduces injury occurrences related to faulty machinery. 

ERP solutions are the ideal answer as they can monitor production assets and help manufacturing leaders pinpoint underperforming equipment that might require maintenance and could prove hazardous to shop floor staff. Additionally, modern ERP software can integrate with enterprise asset management tools that further bolster this capability and support advanced maintenance approaches that cut down on machinery issues.

Is your manufacturing firm interested in boosting worker safety via cutting-edge ERP technology? Connect with Accent Software today. As a certified Microsoft Business Solutions partner, we provide vendor-vetted Microsoft Dynamics NAV implementation services, helping producers of all sizes stabilize their staffing strategies and improve asset performance.