West Pharmaceutical plants in Pinellas are problem-free

West Pharmaceutical Services operates a plant in St. Petersburg similar to the one in North Carolina that exploded Wednesday. But unlike its North Carolina counterpart, the St. Petersburg factory has a clean safety record.

The medical equipment company employs about 380 people in the Tampa Bay area. About 250 work at a plant at 5111 Park St. N in St. Petersburg and 130 work at 11600 53rd St. N in Clearwater.

The St. Petersburg plant and Kinston, N.C., plant are among five West Pharmaceutical facilities in North America and 10 worldwide that make rubber stoppers used with syringes. The Clearwater plant makes aluminum seals for the rubber stoppers.

In June, West completed a 20,000-square-foot expansion in Clearwater, bringing the plant to 65,000 square feet. At the time, the company said it was in the early stages of establishing a Six Sigma quality improvement program in both Clearwater and St. Petersburg.

Employees at both bay area plants said Thursday they were regrouping from the shock of the explosion, but plant management declined to comment, referring calls to the company's corporate offices.

In a statement, West Pharmaceutical president and chief executive Don Morel said he will rely on other plants to keep product flowing while the North Carolina operation remains shut down.

"While I and others at West are focused on this catastrophe," Morel said, "our operations and manufacturing teams worldwide are implementing our disaster recovery plans to utilize alternate manufacturing facilities and to minimize any possible disruption to our customers."

Company spokeswoman Shoba Vaitheeswaran said more details will be released today regarding how locations such as those in the bay area would be affected by the shifting workload.

According to online records, neither of the Pinellas County locations has been cited for any recent safety violations. A sole health complaint at the St. Petersburg plant was filed with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in August 2000, but the case was closed in March 2001 with no citations issued.

Les Grove, a spokesman in OSHA's Tampa office, said there is no active investigation of the Pinellas County operations.

Referring to the troubled Carolina plant, Grove said it is not unusual for a company to have disparate safety records at two plants making the same product.

"Each plant has their own management, their own people," he said. "They can be different."

-- Jeff Harrington can be reached at harrington@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3407.

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