After more than 1 million hours of work without anyone suffering an injury that led to time away from the job, the folks at Sauer Danfoss Co. will get a welcome break.

For about 15 minutes.

“We’re bringing all shifts in, and we’ll just have a shutdown for a little bit,” said Jake Trybom, safety administrator at the plant, 3840 Greenway Drive in the East Hills Business Park. “We’ll have some cookies and punch and thank everybody, and then first shift will leave, second shift will go to work and third shift will go back home.”

The brief ceremony is set for 2:30 p.m. today, when Sauer Danfoss will be honored for its run of safe operations by receiving a KSafe Award from the Kansas Department of Labor.

The department has presented 30 such awards – including nine for recording 1 million accident-free hours – through the program, designed to encourage Kansas employers to develop and maintain safe work environments. Sauer Danfoss’ KSafe award will be the first for a company in Lawrence.

In its 162,000-square-foot Lawrence plant, Sauer Danfoss makes hydrostatic transmissions and components for off-road vehicles and equipment, ranging from road construction implements to zero-turn riding lawnmowers. The plant has 250 employees.

The plant has not recorded an accident that required an employee to miss work since May 2005, Trybom said.