Proactive Safety: Saving Lives and Saving Money

Proactive Safety: Saving Lives and Saving Money

On January 13, 2022, employees reported for work at Eastway Tank, Pump and Meter Ltd., a tank truck manufacturing facility in Ottawa, Ontario, like any other day, not knowing their lives would change forever.

An explosion, described as one of the deadliest workplace incidents in Ottawa’s history, killed six employees and seriously injured a seventh worker that day. More than three and a half years later, on September 11, 2025, Ottawa police charged the company’s owner, Neil Greene, with six counts of criminal negligence causing death and one count of criminal negligence causing bodily harm. He and the company had already pled guilty in April 2024 to regulatory provincial offenses brought by the Ministry of Labour.

Investigations, accusations, and court cases have perhaps outweighed the real story here: safety failures cause employee injuries and deaths, impact production, cause reputational damage, and cost companies billions of dollars every year.

 The Human and Financial Cost of Safety Failures

An additional 987 workers died of workplace injuries in 2022 in Canada. In 2023, 1,057 workers died from workplace injuries and illnesses in Canada, according to the Association of Workers' Compensation Boards of Canada (AWCBC). According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in private-industry manufacturing in the U.S. in 2023, there were approximately 355,800 injury and illness cases at a rate of 2.8 cases per 100 full-time equivalent (FTE) workers. In 2023, the BLS reported 391 fatal work injuries in manufacturing, a rate of 2.5 per 100,000 FTE workers in that sector. Overall in the U.S., there were 5,486 fatal work injuries in 2022 (the last fully published year) and 5,283 in 2023.

In the manufacturing sector, workplace fatalities, injuries, and illnesses continue to pose significant risks. Every one of those numbers represents a person whose life has ended or been permanently changed by a workplace incident, it represents a family that has suffered because of the loss or injury to a loved one.

With such significant incidents taking place, relying solely on reactive responses such as investigating after an injury or doing audits only when required leaves your facility exposed in both human and financial terms.

For these and many other reasons, this is why proactive safety matters in manufacturing. A proactive stance that includes regular risk assessments, robust training, encouraging hazard-reporting, and consistently monitoring behavior and systems sets you up to prevent workplace injuries and fatalities rather than respond to their consequences after the fact.

The Hidden Costs of Waiting to be Proactive

It’s easy to quantify medical bills, workers’ compensation and lost productivity when an injury occurs, but the hidden costs often dwarf them. The prevention of even one major incident could save your organization between $100K - $250K or more in direct and indirect costs. In a recent study on safety return on investment (ROI) in Ontario, Canada, The Institute for Work & Health determined workplace injury- and illness-causing incidents include an average direct cost of between $39k - $78k and indirect costs of $78k - $156k, easily double the direct costs.

According to the National Safety Council (NSC), in 2023 the cost of work-related injuries in the U.S. was about $176.5 billion, or roughly $1,080 per worker, with medically consulted injuries averaging $43,000 per claim. Indirect costs related to lost production, retraining replacement staff, downtime, and the administrative burden of managing workers’ compensation claims can multiply direct costs many times over. From the regulatory perspective, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) states employers pay “almost $1 billion per week” in direct workers’-compensation costs alone.

In sum: the cost per serious injury in a manufacturing facility can easily exceed six figures, and the aggregate cost to industry runs into tens of billions of dollars annually. These numbers make it clear: proactive safety isn’t a luxury; it’s a strategic cost-control and value-creation lever.

Proactive vs. Reactive: What Works

When we talk about proactive measures in manufacturing safety, what we’re really talking about seems like common sense:

• Regular safety inspections and audits of machines, guardrails, ergonomics, and work processes
• Continuous performance monitoring (incident trends, near misses, hazard reports)
• Behavioral safety programs (observations, coaching, restorative training)
• Procedure reviews and sampling to ensure safe work methods
• Training and skill development that focuses on hazard recognition and mitigation

These efforts create a safety culture where every worker feels empowered to notice and report risk. The result is engaged workers who take ownership in safety, fewer surprises, fewer unplanned shutdowns, and fewer catastrophic events.

On the other hand, reactive measures, such as reporting injuries after they have occurred, investigating injury-causing incidents after the fact, and trend-reviewing, are essential but inherently costly and disruptive. They address the aftermath rather than the cause.

Finance-wise, the math is compelling: investing in tools to prevent even one major incident (which might cost $100,000-$250,000 or more in combined direct and indirect costs) is far cheaper than trying to “make up” the total expense of an injury after the fact. Applying such logic in a manufacturing facility makes proactive investment a smart business decision.

Building a Proactive Safety Culture in Manufacturing

Getting started in a manufacturing facility begins with leadership commitment: what management prioritizes inevitably becomes a company priority. Safety must be declared a production imperative, not merely a regulatory checkbox. Building that culture starts with a clear-eyed risk assessment to identify high-hazard processes, machine interactions, material handling challenges, and ergonomic risks. From there, data-driven monitoring systems such as near-miss and hazard reporting help spot trends and intervene early.

Worker engagement is equally essential: when frontline employees are trained in hazard recognition, empowered with stop-work authority, and involved in continuous improvement, safety becomes everyone’s responsibility. An integrated audit and review program, including regular safety sampling, procedural reviews, and behavioral observations, keeps standards high and performance transparent.

Finally, the best programs balance reactive and proactive approaches, which results in using every incident investigation as a learning opportunity that strengthens prevention and reinforces the organization’s overall safety maturity. In manufacturing especially, where heavy machinery, high-speed lines, chemical exposures and physical handling abound, the stakes are high. Every injury avoided means steadier production, fewer delays, and lower insurance premiums. Every fatality avoided means everything to your employees and their families.

The Bottom Line

Investing in proactive safety within your manufacturing facility is more than meeting compliance. It’s about protecting people, ensuring uptime, improving morale, and safeguarding the bottom line. With a rate of 2.8 cases per 100 FTE workers in U.S. manufacturing and nearly 400 fatalities in the sector in 2023 alone, the data are clear. Coupled with the fact that the U.S. economy absorbs upwards of $170 billion annually in injury-related costs, the business case is compelling.

The story is no different in Canada, where the annual cost of workplace injuries and fatalities is estimated to be over $26 billion, a cost absorbed by the economy (ie., employers). In 2023, employers paid over $11.5 billion in total workers' compensation premiums across Canada.

Failure to proactively manage safety is expensive. But when you treat safety as a strategic capability by anticipating hazards instead of simply reacting, you build resilience, enhance productivity, and create long-term value. Don’t wait for the incident to happen to your employee. Proactively manage safety and turn it into your competitive advantage.