CNESST honours local companies for safety innovation

The CNESST, Quebec’s workplace health standards and safety board honoured companies from the Eastern Townships region on Tuesday at the thirteenth National Health and Work Safety Grand Prix.

In the Small and Medium Business innovation category Sherbrooke’s Moules industriels, a subsidiary of M. I. Intégration, took the Gold Medal for its threein-one mobile wind tunnel table which replaces handheld quenching boxes that put their workers at risk of burns and back injuries. The electrically powered blower table is equipped with a rolling tray to remove the quenching boxes from the oven and a guide ensuring perfect alignment with the oven. The table allows workers to manipulate quenching boxes efficiently and safely, while reducing both the time required for cooling and electricity costs.

The People’s Choice prize went to Artopex – Usine TEC Innovation inc. for its production line packaging station. Previously, when chairs came off the production line, they were fully assembled for inspection. To package them semi-assembled, employees had to lay them flat on their backs for partial disassembly, making some chairs difficult to handle because of their shape and weight of about 32 kg (70 lbs). Then, the chairs were laid flat on the back of a special box, which required a twist of the pelvis and a lot of effort in the lower back. To help employees perform the disassembly and packaging steps without hurting themselves, the company introduced two innovations: a chair rocker placed at a height suitable for the disassembly task and a semi-assembled chair manipulator to deposit them correctly in the boxes without effort. Thus, the complete system eliminates the risk of injury.

The People's Choice Award is granted to the organization whose achievement garnered the highest number of public votes among the 46 regional winners in the Innovation category.

The culmination of a Québec-wide competition, the Health and Safety Grand Prix Gala is an opportunity to honour the companies, public organizations, and educational institutions that innovate in the area of prevention of workplace illness and accidents, and to highlight the commitment of those who positively influence their working environment on a daily basis.