Indiana Machine Shop Offers Free Healthcare for Employees and Families

The clinic at this family-owned manufacturer is a cash-free clinic, meaning that employees and dependents can receive free generic prescriptions and care for anyone ages three and up.

Bremen Castings, Inc. (BCI; Bremen, IN) has upped the ante on personalized healthcare by opening an on-site health clinic in mid-November. This new health care center is open 45 hours throughout the week and caters to over 600 bellybuttons of Bremen. The insured and dependents will receive free care from an on-site doctor, nurse practitioner, RN and medical assistant.

The clinic is a cash-free clinic, meaning that employees and dependents can receive free generic prescriptions and care for anyone ages three and up. The clinic itself will be around 2,500 sq ft and can accommodate around three employees per hour. President J.B. Brown notes, “I’ve wanted to establish an on-site clinic for a long time. I think the benefits to offering something in our backyard for our employees and their families is just another way to show our appreciation for their hard work. The cost of health care continues to rise; this option allows access to free care and free medication for our employees throughout the week.”

In addition to free health services, the nurse practitioner on-site will be working with employees one-on-one with various wellness programs. Each week, BCI employees can received a customized plan and meeting with the nurse practitioner that can aid in treating diabetes, cholesterol and other health-related issues.

Foundries and machine shops are notoriously known for being dangerous places, but the BCI shop is changing the tides of the industry, having gone 500 days without lost time. Lost time injury is defined as an occurrence that resulted in a fatality, permanent disability or lost time from work of one day or shift and possibly more.

Brown notes, “We have an incredible staff that come to work and every single day, but we’ve implanted strategies and procedures to make sure that everyone is accountable for everyone’s safety while at work. One example is that require all employees to file “near miss” reports. So if there is a cable in the way or a slippery step, the employee is responsible for moving it and filing a report to inform upper management of the issue. This example is then looked at by our executive team to determine how we can possibly change things in the future to prevent a possible situation from happening.”

BCI’s last lost time occurred over a year ago and required their employee to miss one full shift of work. Since then the foundry and machine shop have gone incident free. In the future BCI would like to establish a zero incident culture, one million man-hours without a lost work time, and two years without lost work time.

This family-owned foundry and machine shop was founded in 1939 in Bremen. With over 70 years of experience, BCI is known worldwide for its quality gray and ductile iron machined castings. As a leader in the machining and foundry industry, Bremen houses its own machine shop and foundry.

Keeping up with technology is high on the priority list with the Brown family as the company continually reinvests in new equipment for production, environmental, and automation improvements. BCI uses 92 percent recycled ferrous material to produce world class gray and ductile iron castings for our world market. www.bremencastings.com