"Paper Bag Manufacturer Leads Industry With Bold New Safety Initiatives"

Richwood, KY (PRWeb) January 31, 2007 -- Duro Bag, www.durobag.com, the world's largest manufacturer and wholesaler of paper bags, has thrown down the gauntlet to the rest of the industry to increase the safety throughout the paper bag industry.

As part of the enhanced safety program, Duro is proud to announce the hiring of Marsha Woods as Manager for Environmental Health and Safety. With over 12 years of experience in Environmental Health and Safety fields, Marsha comes to Duro Bag from Remy International - a major global automotive component manufacturer.

Marsha stated at a recent Safety Envisioning Session, "I am excited to be working with the many talented individuals who make up Duro Bag Manufacturing and to bring our safety program to a world class level. I want to work hand in hand with the plants to increase safety awareness and performance."

Retooling Duro Bag's safety program into a comprehensive and consistent system across multiple plants spanning the U.S. and Mexico is a high priority for Marsha Woods. Her expertise from her recent work with a manufacturing plant in Northeast Indiana is helping her to develop a customized best practice safety training initiative for Duro Bag entitled CORE 6.

Duro Bag's CORE 6 initiatives will focus on nationally recognized OSHA regulatory issues such as:

1. Confined space safety
2. Lock out / tag out (de-energization)
3. Fall protection
4. Mobile equipment safety
5. Machine guarding
6. Ergonomics (back injuries due to lifting bales)

The most common safety issues in the paper bag industry are related to machine guarding and ergonomics. Ms. Woods' work emphases will be placed on helping Duro staff to merge "consistent expectations" of safety across all the facilities of Duro Paper Bag Manufacturing Company. This will be accomplished increasing staff knowledge sharing as well as hands-on development by staff of best practice techniques in the CORE 6 safety areas.

A key component to Duro Bags' new safety initiatives is the shift from producing typical paper training tips forms, which can be hard to share between facilities, to building a robust intranet document library of training handouts. This will allow easy, instant access of critical information to employees. This will reinforce best practice safety training on the spot.

Document management is the key component to development of a new EHS - Environmental Health and Safety Training program. Reducing paper in a company built around manufacturing paper products is one impetus behind development of the new SharePoint intranet website. The end result will be increased consistency and cohesiveness in the improved safety plan.

Development of new "instant alerts" for Injury Incident Notification and the Best Practices Notifications will be coordinated by Ms. Woods' office. These will be integrated as new web-based content into the SharePoint intranet development process at www.durobag.com.

Now in its 10th year, the "Safety Awards" program will still be managed by Marsha Woods' office. From T-shirts to DVD players, the awards program, as well as the ever popular "Safety Bingo" program, have been key components of effective safety team building within the Duro Bag family. These programs have prevented numerous injuries and downtime as well as saving money over the years.

Additional existing Safety program components such as the monthly "Safety Committees" and the "SPOT" program will also be more structurally formalized.

Building a lengthy list of project tasks within the scope of her new assignment, Duro will usher in a new era of safety in the manufacturing of paper bags. Ms. Woods said that she "looks forward to helping to unite Duro staff under a comprehensive umbrella of safety."

Contact:
Marsha Woods - Manager for Environmental Health and Safety
Duro Bag Manufacturing Company
www.durobag.com
7600 Empire Drive
Florence, KY 41042
Phone: (859) 581-8200
www.durobag.com

About Duro Paper Bag Manufacturing, Company.
Founded in 1953, Duro Bag is the largest manufacturer of paper bags in the world. A family owned company, headed by president and CEO, Charles Shor, based in Ludlow, Kentucky, Duro has 12 plants manufacturing bags in the United States and Mexico. Producing over 20 billion environmentally friendly paper bags per year, Duro supplies most of the largest grocery and retail chains with a wide variety of wholesale paper bag products. For more information, visit http://www.durobag.com

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