April 2017 marked a major safety milestone for Bruce & Merrilees Electric Company: two million hours on the job without a single Lost-Time Incident (LTI). An LTI is defined by OSHA as any injury or incident that causes an employee to miss one or more working days.
Bruce & Merrilees is an electrical construction & services firm headquartered in New Castle, PA. Given the nature of electrical work and the high risk that can be involved, reaching two million man-hours without a single LTI is a significant accomplishment.
“Reaching two million incident-free hours is not luck,” said Jared Leute, Safety Director at Bruce & Merrilees. “We have a zero-incident philosophy. It takes the combined efforts of every team member to make sure that each working day is a safe one.”
Bruce & Merrilees’ employees – more than 300 people – receive regular safety training throughout the year. The company encourages employees to report “Near Miss” situations, which improves communications between teams and prevents future incidents and injuries. Bruce & Merrilees also teaches its employees the concept of Human Performance and the role that human error plays in safety incidents.
“Our commitment to safe work comes before everything else we do,” said Bruce & Merrilees President/CEO Jay Bruce. “’Safe’ is our very first core value. The first measure of any successful day or successful project is whether it was safe.”
Bruce & Merrilees commends its team members for their hard work and dedication in achieving this momentous milestone.