Dramatic Improvement in Safety Performance for Gas Manufacturer

Client Profile  

A family and teammate-owned business in North Carolina 

American Welding & Gas, Inc. (AWG), a family and teammate-owned business, is headquartered in Raleigh, NC. The company manufactures and distributes industrial, medical, specialty, and beverage gases and associated welding and safety supplies. They operate over 90 retail locations and 18 gas-fill plants in 20 states. AWG has approximately 650 employees who serve customers in over 30 states and Canada. 

Challenge  

Meeting DOT, OSHA, FDA, and EPA Reporting Requirements with a Manual System 

AWG has admirable goals for its Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) program: Zero recordable injuries, zero lost workday cases, and zero at-fault vehicle accidents. 

But before implementing KPA, the company had several challenges: 

• A manual, paper-based system could not reliably meet the stringent reporting requirements of four major regulatory agencies. 

• Monthly equipment inspections were not being completed consistently in the field. 

• Training was managed by an outdated software platform that could not issue refresher notifications. 

• AWG needed detailed reporting across four divisions, plus the ability to bubble up reporting to the company’s CEO and owners. 

AWG Safety Director Bill Woods needed an EHS platform that would deliver dramatic improvement to help meet the company’s ambitious zero-loss goal. 

“Sometimes you plateau, and you have to figure out how to get to that next level,” Woods said. 

Potential hazards for AWG spanned from handling high pressure gas to maintaining safety on the road with the company’s 265-person commercial driver fleet.  

Solution  

The KPA Flex Platform Meets AWG’s Training and Reporting Needs 

In choosing an online EHS platform, Woods quickly gravitated to KPA Flex’s user friendliness and customizability. Specifically, he appreciated access to a demo of the software prior to signing a contract so he could see hands-on what the platform could do. 

Woods discovered that KPA’s training resources gave him the ability to: 

• Create custom training modules and edit existing KPA modules as needed, including using “yes/no” logic in the forms. 

• Preserve data and map completed trainings from AWG’s old system to KPA. 

• Roll out training to everyone in the organization. 

• Instantly add new hires (including from company acquisitions), and map employee location and title changes. 

“I went back to AWG’s executive team and said, ‘There’s going to be a commitment here, but it’s well worth it.’ And that’s when we started investing in KPA.” 

Woods also launched KPA’s OSHA Case Management module to track events for OSHA and rolled out preventive checklists and inspections for fire extinguishers and emergency lighting. He’s also rolling out equipment lists with QR codes across the company’s 90+ locations. 

Result  

KPA Delivers a Dramatic Improvement in Safety Performance 

AWG has had KPA in place since mid-2021. KPA Flex has enabled AWG to: 

• Achieve significant improvement in safety performance. 

• Increase reporting frequency from the field. 

• Track all training data in an automated, centralized platform. 

• Improve training content to make it highly relevant to AWG. 

• Review up-to-date data with management during the organization’s Monday safety meetings. 

Woods has noted a significant increase in reporting, including the use of QR codes for scanning in the field and drivers being able to do training remotely from their hotel room versus being tied to an on-premises kiosk. 

“Our people are utilizing the platform, which has contributed to our success of driving our safety performance towards our goal of zero accidents and zero injuries.”  

“KPA has been so useful, unlike an excel spreadsheet that is sometimes difficult to fill out,” he continued. “It allows us to obtain data quickly so we can make decisions based on data versus gut instinct to get closer to that zero-incident goal.” 

He concluded by noting that KPA’s customer service and technical teams are top-notch. “The technical development team is super responsive. They are always open to suggestions that improve the platform’s effectiveness.”