Quote WCCO-TV

MN-Based Cargill Fined For Fatal Accident

Cargill Meat Solutions has been fined $80,000 by state investigators and ordered to change some of its practices for violations connected to a fatal accident last year.

A report from the state's Occupational Safety and Health Bureau cites Cargill, a subsidiary of Minnesota-based Cargill Inc., for not furnishing a place of employment that was free of hazards that could cause death or serious injury......

.....The state report said Cargill needed to take several corrective steps, including establishing a weight limit on the backlog rail system, creating a preventive maintenance system and including dated reports from all inspections.

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What do you think?

Terry O

Terry,

One of the reasons behind the establishment of rigorous maintenance routines preferably based on an accepted international standard.

If their PM regime was even partially to blame, in the 21st century, then it is a sad indictment of them as managers and as people, and I hope what we are seeing here is only the beginning of ths story.

USD$80,000 seems pretty cheap for a human life at any time, but particularly so when it is in an event that was eminently predictable or preventable. (If this was the case)

In the very first chapter of my book The Maintenance Scorecard, and then again in the second chapter, I look at some legislative responses around the world to this sort of negligence.

In particular the recent laws in Canada where a person (individual) can be eligible for fines of CND$100,000 and up to 25 years in jail.

As long as there are negligent companies taking actions to deliberately, and unreasonably, put lives at risk for the sake of economic profit, then there is a need for people and the public to be protected from them.

Not only that but there is a need for companies to protect their shareholders from legal action that could follow from issues such as this.

Tragic.

Quote KTVOTV3.com

Family of Cargill employee killed in accident speaks out


(OTTUMWA) Wednesday's fatal accident at the Cargill Meat Solutions plant in Ottumwa has left many unanswered questions for the victim's family.

Paul McCrory, 41, of Ottumwa died after one of the rails that holds hog carcasses collapsed on top of him.

Family members speculate the accident could have been prevented.

"We are waiting for answers from Cargill and from OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) in regards to the accident," said John McCrory, brother of Paul McCrory.

Family members of say there were complaints about the equipment at the Cargill Meat Solutions plant made to his employer before his fatal accident on Wednesday.

"We do know that there is something that has come to our knowledge that we will probably need to hold off on making any decisions or judgements at this point," John McCrory said.

We have requested the official report from the state of Iowa to learn more about what role the lack of a preventive maintenance program played in this accident.

Will keep you posted.

Condolences to the family.

Terry O

Terry:

I would also be interested. One of the things that concerns me is that it may actually be an overloading issue/design issue versus a maintenance issue. I have recently run into a few instances, including one where there was the explosion of buswork and damage to a transformer. As it turned out, the production equipment was being overloaded, the understood risk was failure to equipment, but production required the increase.

Howard

Here is the Citation and Notification of penalty from the Cargill incident in Iowa.

It seems like there was no Preventive Maintenance program in place for this system nor was there any formal training to conduct inspections and define proper function.

Comments?

Terry O

cargill_penalty_iowa.pdf (270 Kb, 27 downloads) Citation and Notification penalty