Steel Industry Recognizes Four Companies for Excellence in Health and Safety

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The World Steel Association (worldsteel) has honored four organizations for their excellence in health quality and safety. The four companies- Hadeed Saudi Arabia, Liberty OneSteel Australia, Tata Steel Thailand and Usiminas Brazil were recognized for their ongoing commitments and achievements in safety and health management and their willingness to share them with peers during 2016.

The winners were selected from among 17 submissions received from 13 member companies. Nominations were sought for initiatives across three categories-Occupational Safety Management, Occupational Health Management and Process Safety Management.

Andrew Purvis, Director, Safety, Health and Environment at worldsteel congratulated the winners. He reminded all members that nothing else is more important than the safety and health of steel industry workers and urged them to work towards achieving the final goal of an accident-free workplace.

Saudi Iron & Steel Company (Hadeed) received the award for its excellence in Process Safety Management (PSM). As part of the system, the company has developed a well-defined safety incident reporting and investigation system, which allows for pro-active corrections. The employees are provided an online reporting system through which all process safety abnormalities can be reported. Further, it has a well-defined management system to monitor the PSM performance.

The award also recognized the Goal Zero safety engagement programme of Liberty Onesteel, Australia, which was responsible for active engagement and participation by its employees in various safety and health initiatives. The programme developed baseline information through employee surveys. An analysis of site injury trends was also made. Based on this, the programme arranged for various engagement workshops that offered hands-on practical activities at regular intervals.

Tata Steel Thailand was recognized for their initiatives to identify and rectify the gaps in implementation of Contractor Safety Management (CSM) framework. This helped the Tata Steel Group facility to achieve zero Lost Time Injuries for both contractors and employees.

The fourth winner was Usiminas, Brazil for their Safe Hands Project. Since its inception in 2013, the project has achieved significant results. Altogether nearly 1,300 projects were presented with active employee participation. Consequently, frequency of accidents involving hands has reduced significantly by 46%. Incidentally, hand injuries had earlier accounted for 42% work accidents at the facility.