Ash Grove cement plant in Montana City logged 10 years without a single day lost to a workplace injury on Friday.

Dan Peters, who worked in the Montana City plant about 20 years ago and is now western regional vice president of Ash Grove, based in Overland Park, Kan., said the stretch of safety is “almost unparalleled in the industry.”

“We have other plants with excellent safety workers, but they haven’t gone 10 years,” said Steve Minshall, the company’s director of health and safety, visiting from Kansas.

Plant manager Dick Johnson attributed the run to among other things, a principle of plant cleanliness, and to the positive relationships among the workers.

“When people get along, they watch out for one another, and that can go a long way,” he said.
Workers at the plant said it has emphasized safety in many ways: more training, better guarding around high-risk machinery, greater use of warning horns when certain machines start, and a culture that encourages workers to report safety problems.