Walking the Talk: Safety and Quality

by Neil Prien

Safety and quality, two core values that established the company more than 50 years ago, still hold true with RedBuilt today. They sound good, yet how does RedBuilt really “walk the talk” when it comes to safety of its associates and the quality of our products?

Simply — through transparency and continuous improvement.

RedBuilt utilizes the ISO 9001 model for best operating practices in each of our four manufacturing plants. By following this model we’re able to have standardized practices that offers predictability, for both the safety of our associates and the quality of our products. RedBuilt receives third party audits and oversight, and yet we control and manage our own system.

Even with consistent practice, the quality management system is always being improved. With the diligence of the Continuous Improvement teams, RedBuilt refines and adjusts our well-tuned processes and procedures. Made up of associates from sales, engineering, and manufacturing – these cross-functional teams uncover opportunities for improvement throughout the organization.

One example of a continuous improvement success story is within one of the manufacturing plants. In the past, large trusses were moved by hand along and across roll cases by an undefined number of associates. This effort created an environment where an associate could injure themselves or others. A team, including the associates actually performing this task, developed a more automated method of transferring these trusses and defined the number of associates required to move them. The new process has greatly reduced the chance of injury to our associates and has been shared with all of our manufacturing plants for replication where applicable.

Another example is for shop drawings. With feedback from the installation reviews conducted by sales, we learned that installers were having difficulty reading shop drawings on the jobsite because the font was too small. By shedding light on this issue with the engineering group, they revised the shop drawing standards for all drawings to include a larger, more readable font.

Talking about safety and quality is easy. Doing it is different. These core values are demonstrated everyday by RedBuilt associates. Through a culture of transparency and our work on continuous improvement, we hold true to walking the talk.

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Neil Prien is RedBuilt’s Manufacturing Technical Director and a member of the Continuous Improvement Team.