Die casting is manufacturing at its most basic and dirty level. Companies that use casting suppliers must allow additional lead time for procuring the castings, as they are typically a long lead-time item. And die casters are known for being generally at the low end of the manufacturing efficiency and innovation scale. According to a North American Die Casting Association (NADCA) report, the number of die caster was expected to drop from 367 in 1999 to 287 in 2008 and the association halfed its dues this year due to the rough economic state of affairs for the industry. Competition from China and the bad state of the auto industry are two factors. But if you thought that dangerous manufacturing conditions exist only in China, think again
Despite the difficulty of the business econonmically, the inherent danger and dirtiness of the casting manufacturing business was revealed recently in an article in the Concord Monitor about a Franklin, NH company, Franklin Non-Ferrous Foundry. The foundry sounds like a scene out of Dante’s Inferno. Thick brown dust containing lead, antimony, cadmium and other heavy metals covered everything in both the foundry and the office. According to the article, workers joke that they don’t dare drag their feet at work for fear of kicking up a cloud of this toxic dust. Workers were not wearing breathing protection and working near bubbling vats of 2300 degree molten metal without any heat protection. The company was slapped with numers OSHA fines for over 57 violations, 25 of which were in the serious category, which means potentially life-threatening.
What is interesting about this situation is how blase the company owner and workers are about the situation. Most seem more concerned about keeping their jobs than worrying about getting sick or hurt by the situation. As one worker said, as he was given a respirator when he started working there, ““I think it’s fun. You learn new things.” And while the owners have been slapped with hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, it is not clear which fines have been paid. And OSHA cannot shut the company down, only report violations and levy fines. When a Concord Monitor reporter toured the facility recently, the owner told him that most of the violations had been fixed.
So what would you do if you had a supplier that operated like this, endangering its employees and the environment, yet still supplied you with quality parts at a good price that met your specifications? Die casters, particularly North American ones, are a dwindling species. Would you prefer to deal with Chinese die casters, who are likely to be operating like this without any governmental protections for health and safety of its workforce? If a manufacturer needs the parts to run their business, are they willing to do business with whoever can supply the parts without regard to how the supplier runs its business? What if none of the suppliers offered a clearly safe alternative? And, are you even aware of whether you have a directo or sub-tier supplier that runs its business without health and safety protections in place? It’s a tricky question of ethics and corporate social responsibility.
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When it comes to safety, it is not a tricky question. Safety comes first. It is unethical to turn a blind eye to a safety hazard. In your everyday life you would alert a fellow citizen to an unsafe condition. This is no different. Knowing what the right thing to do is, is not the challenge, doing the right thing is. Doing the right thing is at the core of ethics. I don’t want to sound like a Pollyanna but, success comes from doing what is honest and right.