Curt Lewis & Associates Probes Workplace Safety Gaps.

FORT WORTH, Texas -- Think your workplace is safe? Think again. According to a recent Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) report, employees in construction and extraction occupations, and transportation and material moving jobs accounted for nearly half of all fatal work injuries in 2006, a whopping 48 percent increase from 2005. And while the overall fatality rate for U.S. workers decreased in 2006, the fatality rate for employees involved in aircraft-related occupations experienced a sharp 44 percent increase from last year.

One firm, Curt Lewis & Associates (CLA), is proactively helping companies identify and bridge safety gaps that could result in employee injury or fatality. The Texas-based firm has developed a sophisticated audit process that pinpoints deficient or incomplete processes that could substantially alter employee safety.

According to Curt Lewis, CLA's president, most people perform work that depends on processes and procedures. Over time, activities--including high risk ones--become automatic. Adding new activities, even temporarily, can negatively affect established work processes.

"We quantify an organization's processes through data analysis," says Lewis. "This allows our team to find breaches where safety is being compromised. Once we identify these areas, we work with the organization to find an effective solution that will boost safety to an acceptable level."

The firm is most effective when working with organizations that are actively addressing safety. Currently, CLA is performing a highly focused safety assessment for a major international airport, concentrating on runway incursions. An incursion involves an aircraft, vehicle or person on the ground that creates a collision hazard with an aircraft that is taking off or landing. "We're proactively involved in quantifying this potential hazard to ensure that a low-risk safety level is being maintained," Lewis says.

Along with workplace safety audits, CLA also performs aviation, airline and airport safety audits, quality audits and ISO 9000 audits.

For more information or a free consultation, companies can contact CLA by calling 817.303.9096 or by e-mailing Curt Lewis at: [e-mail].

Curt Lewis & Associates, LLC is a multi-discipline consulting firm specializing in aviation and industrial safety. The firm, established in 2005, targets system safety audits and safety training programs, risk management, accident investigation and litigation support. For more information, visit www.curt-lewis.com.