Better Together: Kurt Mehlberg, Improving Safety Training - A Hands-on Approach

Safety is not just a buzzword for the pulp, paper, and packaging industries—it's critical to our operations and to our collective future. For an inspired group of TAPPI members and safety professionals, that was the motivation behind a new TAPPI Technical Information Paper (TIP) that outlines a proven approach to safety training that any mill can use. PIMA TIP 1502-01 Improving Safety Training - A Hands-on Approach represents a new category for TIPs and the first from the PIMA division.

Our guest for this episode is Kurt Mehlberg, quality solutions manager for Domtar, Resolute, and Paper Excellence, and a recipient of the Division Leadership and Service Award for TAPPI's PIMA Division. He alsohad a big hand in developing this new TIP with other members of PIMA's Safety Committee. As Kurt says, "We're all on that safety journey towards zero"—there is no other acceptable goal for any mill or plant. Kurt shares more about this TIP's development process and why the effort has been so beneficial.

Learn more about PIMA, or any of TAPPI's other volunteer-led divisions.

Grow professionally by getting involved in the TAPPI Standards and TIPs process.

Access TAPPI Standards and TIPs online 24/7 through either Individual or Company license.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to this episode of Better Together, the Paper 360 podcast. No matter your company or your job title, whether you work in the C suite or on the mill floor, there is one fundamental topic important to all of us: safety. For one inspired group of happy members and safety professionals, that was the motivation behind a new happy tip or technical information paper that outlines a hands-on approach to safety training. The goal is to help all males design more effective safety training for a safer, stronger industry. I recently chatted with Kurt Melberg, Quality Solutions Manager for Downtown Resolute and Paper Excellence. Kurt had a big hand in developing this new tip, and he tells us a bit about how it all came to be. I'm Jan Bottelary, editor of Paper 360 magazine, and I'm pleased to welcome Kurt and you to this episode of Better Together. I'm really excited to welcome Kurt Melberg. He's Quality Solutions Manager for DomTar, Resolute, and Paper Excellence. And he's going to tell us about a fantastic new tappy tip developed around safety. Kurt, thank you for being on the show today.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

You are welcome. Appreciate the opportunity.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

And I'm really excited to learn more about what you and the PIMA Safety Committee have pulled together. So you kind of started the PIMA Safety Committee. You got the ball rolling. And it's been a two-year process pulling together this tip. So can you give us a little background on that? How did the whole thing begin to form?

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Sure, absolutely, Jan. And it's been a fun and exciting journey. And, you know, back when I was executive director with Pima, you know, Pima's mission and vision really and the goals were really pointed at being the trusted source of industry-specific safety leadership, you know, workforce development, and ultimately, you know, and improving and enhancing PIMA's uh influence and leadership in the paper industry. So once that executive director term was up and we had really aligned on that vision, vision, and values, um, I started the PIMA Safety Committee as the chair, and during that time, you know, built that platform. And how we built that platform was really using TapyCon and input certainly from the from a great committee um to gather information and input towards top risk reduction across our industry. Actually, at uh I believe it was the 2021 TapyCon, we had over 50 ideas that were generated. And we yeah, we worked with uh we did it used to benefit and effort chart. We actually did it with sticky notes right on the wall. Yeah, yeah, really engaging. Uh uh, you know, folks wrote down their ideas, we put them on the wall, and then we organized them with a benefit effort chart that really um provided that information. And then we actually voted, everybody that came to Tappy Hotcon had the opportunity to vote for their top three. And one of the top one of the top three turned into the first tip. So um, you know, that's that's essentially how the concept came came to be. And and over the past couple of years, uh, we've had a very engaged cross-functional team. We've had we have representatives from Selenis, IP, Pinoco, Mac, uh, myself with uh you know the downtown resolve PE team and Georgia Pacific on our committee. Uh so we've got you know Mills, we've got suppliers, we've got a really great cross-functional group that have uh have built, I'll say, this annual cycle now. That's real really where we're going to go and we've aligned on of choosing a safety topic for the year, um, using TapyCon as uh an opportunity to have presentations about that topic. And then we also hold an annual joint webinar with TPSA, so it's a joint PIMA. Oh, cool, oh, it's a pulp and papy. Yeah, Pulp and Papy Paper Safety Association. Um uh we do a joint webinar. So each month they have a webinar. We do that collaboratively once per year with them, um, using their platform and uh our content, and it's it's been a great collaboration. So get more information, get more input, you know, touch a different group um on that on that call, and typically do that later in the year, then use all of that information uh to build depth. So this past year was our first tip was uh you know uh improving safety training using a hands-on approach, and that's our first safety tip. Uh you know, each year we are going to really repeat that process.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

That's what we always tout about TapyCon. And I do so many podcast episodes with people, you know, on the ground at TapyCon, at Supercore Expo, at Core Expo. There really is no substitution for that face-to-face engagement. And don't you find that it really does get people throwing out ideas, thinking deeply about what they do and what how it matters and what the impact they can have? Um, I love that Appicon was this vehicle for that and that you plan to use that in the future.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Yeah, absolutely, Dan. And you know, building that network is so important. And there's no better way to do it than to do it in person, right?

SPEAKER_02 6:10

Right. I agree. So let me ask you this: why did you decide to create a tip instead of say just stopping with the presentation in the webinar instead of maybe writing an article for paper 360? What is it about the tip process and and the idea of a tip that really that you felt would work here?

SPEAKER_01 6:32

As a committee, we had a lot of discussion about your about your your question and the content and not only, you know, how to turn all of that effort that we, you know, effort and content that we've built into usable information, but also to share that information, right? Because at the end of the day, we're doing this to get it out to as many people as possible in the spirit of reducing risk across the industry that so that can go home the way they came to work. And at the end of the day, there's really nothing more important in our jobs than that. So we had a lot of discussion about that. Um, any in any and all communication methods were were on the table, if you will. But really, we landed on the tip as the right way to truly document and share that information really for reference permanently, right? Um sometimes you you fear that a podcast or an article or a presentation, it may stick for a while, but now there's an actual document that someone can reference and use for decades to come. So that's that's that's really the why behind, you know, we chose that. We certainly will use every methods. Here we are having a podcast talking about it, you know, to communicate with more folks. But well, I think at the end of the day, it's a great tool.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

Yeah, and let me just give a little background for listeners who may not know. Kurt and I keep talking about a Tappy tip. And what TIP TIP stands for is technical information paper. And so TAPI has a vast collection of these that really set out best practices, um, standardized testing methods and standardized approaches. Um, but what some people might not realize about TIPS is that they are living documents. They are not only widely accessible as best practices, but they are constantly being reassessed, reevaluated, updated. Um, so they are both references and these living documents that change as the industry changes and as professionals provide new input. Um, they're really, really neat, and they're part of how Tappy got its start more than 100 years ago. Um, so the fact that tips are still you know, an important part of Tappy, I think shows exactly what you're saying, Kurt, is that it it lasts, it's shareable, and safety is really a new kind of approach for a Tappy tip, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 9:15

It is, it is. And you know, the beauty of safety is that there's there's really not much proprietary information, and we can openly share those better practices and lessons learned.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

Yeah, I love that. So lessons learned. And that's where what you were talking about, everybody kind of getting together in a room and putting those post-its up on the wall, that's where that comes in, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:40

Right, right. Yeah. So it was a neat process. And and it it definitely took us some time to put that technical information paper, that tip together. Um, you know, we had some members on our committee that were very familiar and actually had been a part of uh building or had input with other tips in the past, and then we had some members on our committee that didn't know what a quote unquote tip was, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:03

So yeah, I find a lot of you know, Tappy has so many um sort of entries into engagement that I'm surprised sometimes that someone who is really engaged, say, uh, you know, in one they may be really engaged in, say, the mentor mentee process that Tappy supports and not know a lot about the tips, or vice versa. So there really is so much going on that not everybody knows everything. There's a lot there.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

It certainly took us some time to build this first tip, but now that we've done it once, we will certainly be more efficient in the future. And one one part of the tip that I really I I just I never really thought about in the past, but I was really pleased with it's called it's called the keyword section. And we actually spent a lot of time talking about keywords so that when someone searches for safety or training or any of the topics that we cover, you can it you know it's it it improves the chances of somebody efficiently getting their hands on this tip.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

Yeah, keywords are like a little breadcrumb trail back to where you where you store the information, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Right, right, right, right, right. So yeah. We learn every day, and that was certainly one of the one of the uh items I learned through this process for sure.

SPEAKER_02 11:25

Well, let's lean into this idea of hands-on. You say it's a hands-on approach that the tip describes. Tell us a little about that. What what is the the approach that the tip describes and what makes it hands-on?

SPEAKER_01 11:40

Sure. And yeah, I encourage everybody to go out and leverage and you know, read through that tip and use it as you see fit. But safety training is done essentially, you know, three different ways across our industry. One would be a virtual classroom, another would be in person in a classroom, and another would be truly doing it physically hands-on. Um, you know, and honestly, especially during the pandemic, the industry certainly almost had to go to using either virtual or you know, classroom spread out training methods or even online. So um, we got away from that a little bit. And and even though um, you know, sometimes those I'll say non-hands-on virtual uh training can be value added for some topics, there there are a lot of aspects of our operation that really require requires a strong word, but are way more effective using a hands-on approach, right? And that's how many of us learn best is by doing it ourselves, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:49

I agree, especially with something like training that is so so much a part of daily work and daily habit, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Right, right. And you know, whether it's you know uh confined space training to literally go into a space that's dark with your gear on is very different than watching a video about that, right? Or perform performing a lockout on a on a small skid that has water pressure in it. You can see what happens if you know you don't do it properly. So those types of uh examples are shared in the in that uh in that hands-on safety tip. So and really a lot of focus in that tip about um getting after the we call them SIF, SIF, another acronym, it's the serious incident fatality potential um activities that we do every day across our industry. So a lot of focus about you know more emphasis on hands-on training, those really serious uh risk activities that we do. So yeah, there are some companies that have determined that those SIF activities, that training, has to be done using hands-on approach. That's how effective some companies have deemed that methodology. So I think else answer your question.

SPEAKER_02 14:13

Yeah, the whole it does. And and I I think the whole attitude towards safety, I mean, you've been a safety professional, Kurt, for how long now?

SPEAKER_01 14:21

I mean, uh everybody in the industry should be a safety professional. I mean, I'm a trained professional, but at the end of the day, at the end of the day, no matter what we do, whether you're in a university working in a lab or you're on your first co-op or intern, or you're in sales, or you're a vice president, every single day safety is part of your job for sure. So um, yeah, that's that that's that's the base. That's the base for everything we do.

SPEAKER_02 14:52

Yeah, I love that attitude. I mean, and really it's the only attitude, but I think it's not always where our industry has been, you know, historically decades ago. Um but I think now, if you know a better way, you have to there is no, eh, we'll save a few dollars here in safety. Nobody that I mean, that's just not acceptable anymore. That's not an acceptable attitude. And certainly when we talk about um attracting and retaining young professionals in our industry, we have to get over this stigma that manufacturing is inherently dangerous, that manufacturing is inherently, you know, a risk uh environment when really so many people in the industry work so hard to make sure that those risks are minimized. And there is no, there is no compromise on that anymore.

unknown 15:49

Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

I mean, it goes to the table stakes to running a business, right? Is doing it safely, taking care of the environment and taking care of your customer. You know, that's that's your right to operate, so to speak. And um, yeah, and and you're you're absolutely right. You know, I've uh had the opportunities to to to speak to a lot of uh say early career professionals, um you know, either in college or entry-level engineers about safety, and and I'm impressed with the culture change across the industry and how safety is number one. It's not operations over safety, it's not dollars over safety. Safety is first, period. And that's the way it has to be. And every day we learn, and this is part of that learning is let's just keep reducing risk that we truly get to zero.

SPEAKER_02 16:33

Yeah, there's no other goal than zero. There's no other goal. Um, so you've got a hands-on approach. How can Mills use this tip? Like tell tell folks, uh listeners how so now it's a tip. What do you do with it? Basically.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

But you know, the tip really I think does a good job of illustrating the impact and value of hands-on safety training. Because it does take more time, it takes more effort. It may take a c a small capital expense to build a a lockout dig out skid that's that has a motor and water you know connected to it to make it as real as possible. But um, we've got some actual industry safety results in there that help prove the why behind the need for hands-on safety training. Yeah. We've got some you know, better uh never say best, but better practice examples in there and a lot of photographs. So I think they're very helpful for folks to use, you know, as as they see fit. And they're probably there's a there are I mean, if you actually go through the document, there are a lot of photos in there that uh the old cliches are worth a thousand words. Uh they are. Um see those photos and that tip is is very useful. So, you know, so again, like you said, the purpose, Jan, of this this uh standard is to really organize, provide information, um, and also the support, you know, so that uh companies can I'll say make that investment in their employees and in the business um and use some of this hands-on safety training equipment and concepts.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

So it's almost like a little um like a mini consultant that you can invite to your mill. Save a few thousand dollars on consulting fees to get some of that information that's been shared by real professionals in the industry.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

Correct, correct. Yeah, and and again, we had a really good cross-section of input in this, and pretty proud of the work that uh that the safety committee did to put this information together. You know, and it's it's good. Um, you know, we're always open to feedback and always welcome. Um, like you say, you know, maybe there's a a better way than than what we've come up with, but uh at least you got a really good start, a good foundation and some great reference based off of experience that you can you can leverage.

SPEAKER_02 19:12

Can you can you give us a little sneak into some of the um some of the anecdotal evidence that was brought forward as um, you know, this is what we tried at our mill and it worked great. And let's add that to the tip. Can you give us a little sneak peek into some of those?

SPEAKER_01 19:31

Sure. Um, you know, some of the data that's that's in the tip, um one company shared some of their um lessons learned. You know, they the culture of safety grew um in multiple ways, but one way they really improved their results by doing hands-on safety training. And during the pandemic, um you know, they went away from that part of it. We had to, right? And they definitely definitely saw an increase in um their uh total recordable counts during the pandemic. So I know that's maybe not the indicator per se of performance, but it certainly pointed in the direction that uh getting away from those hands-on safety days, that hands-on safety training and having that one-on-one conversation. Um it turned a continuous trend the wrong way, and then going back to safety training hands-on after the pandemic that uh that that negative trend. So yeah, that's built right into the into the tip.

SPEAKER_02 20:36

That's that's really cool. So Mills will be able to see sort of that, you know, mirroring information. Oh, they're like us, and they tried it, it worked. So it it just helps spur that culture, I think, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Yeah, it's you know, we're all on that safety journey towards zero. And that was one key trend that went the wrong way when they got away from doing what we're talking about here. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 21:01

So you get together on the PIMA safety committee and you have these conversations, you you create this living document, this tip that now you can share with the industry. Um, what have you gained just professionally and personally? What what do you think are the big takeaways for someone who gets involved in this process?

SPEAKER_01 21:25

That's a great question, Jan. Now reflecting on that, I think this the process and this opportunity um, you know, it reinforces the importance of you know organization, documentation. We talk about systems so much in all of our jobs, and that you know that allows us to build and share information, not only for today, but for decades to come. And with this work that we've done from a safety perspective, it's really rewarding to me. And you know, it also wraps back full circle with uh you know PEMA's mission and Of adding value and what better topic to work on that truly has an impact and safety.

SPEAKER_02 22:07

I agree. It's the I think it's the one topic that pulp, paper, packaging, tissue, um, where whatever part of the industry your job touches as a supplier, safety is is that common thread that pulls through, right? That pulls us all together and hopefully is supported from from every side. Um so how would other, so our legions of listeners out there, the millions of people breathlessly tuning into this episode, um, how would they get involved with this process? How would they maybe access the tip? How would they maybe join the conversation at Tapicon or join the Pima Safety Committee? Are those opportunities available?

SPEAKER_01 22:57

Absolutely. Absolutely, Jan, and and any and all are welcomed. Um, you know, we actually just sent out a survey to a lot of people across the paper industry looking for input and um towards our 2024 topic, which is uh focused on pre-task risk assessments.

SPEAKER_02 23:17

Pre-task risk assessment. I've I've read some about this where you do the you do your homework before you do the job, right?

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Single, right, right, right, right. So again, how do we reduce risk before we get into something trying to be proactive? But uh but with that, so we've got uh survey out and we're getting some good feedback there. Um certainly Tapicon will be presenting on that topic at Tapicon. Um TPSA, um, and a lot of folks are involved with that. We'll be doing a joint webinar coming up here in November. Um, you're welcome to contact me. Um Bob White is the uh executive director of PIMA. We're always open to input and improvements. And if you want to get involved and engaged, you're absolutely welcome to the assistance.

SPEAKER_02 24:10

Okay, and you know what? I think I can drop some links onto our landing page, maybe a link to that webinar, um, a link to more information about PIMA, a link to our upcoming tap econ uh that people can check to see as the program develops. Before I let you go, Kurt, is there anything that you'd like to add, any little story that you can tell about the process that really, really struck you as wow, what we're doing here is important?

SPEAKER_01 24:40

I I think maybe just the final uh comment would be, you know, once you get involved, it's uh it's amazing what you learn. Um and I know you know, just working with a lot of different people across the industry, I was really impressed and amazed by uh the group that we put together and this the safety committee and the passion we have we all have for industry. And and again with safety, you know, it's uh it's so exciting to to make a a marked improvement on a super you know, super important facet of our our livelihood and our business. But just stepping back sometimes and um you know learning from others is just uh it's so rewarding. So that's my little story.

SPEAKER_02 25:22

I love it, and that's what chapter is all about. Get involved. Yeah, and so listeners, you can't see. I'm on a live Zoom with Kurt and I can see him. He's wearing like two pairs of safety goggles, he's wearing a hard hat. He's got ear, like six pairs of earphones just dangling around his neck. He is all about that safety. Um, Kurt, thank you so much for taking the time. I know you're a busy guy, um, but I really enjoyed our discussion. And again, safety is that one thing that we all share. Um, so go out there and be safe, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:57

Absolutely. Thank you and have a great safety, everybody.

SPEAKER_02 26:00

Thanks. As Kurt said, we're all on that safety journey towards zero. There is no other acceptable goal for any mill or plant. And you don't need to feel you're alone on the journey because a dedicated volunteer group of safety experts have pulled their knowledge to create this new Tappy tip designed to help our industry standardize the best path forward. My thanks to Kurt Melberg for being on the podcast and to all those who were willing to share their knowledge about what works in safety training. We hope listeners will want to explore how they can get involved in the Tappy Tips and Standards process. Learn more by following the link on our landing page. You know, standards and tips groups are not only a great place to learn from peers and grow your professional knowledge, they're a living example of how we really are better together. Thanks for listening.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

Hello everyone, this is Larry Montague, president and CEO of Tappy, the pulp, paper, packaging, tissue, and converter industry's go to resource for news, industry trends, and technical and management information. We hope you enjoyed today's Better Together podcast. And remember, there are two types of people in our industry Tappy members and those who should be. Have a great day.