As part of its commitment to the highest safety and health standards, the World Steel Association (worldsteel) recognises excellence in six of its member companies for delivering demonstrable improvements in safety and health.
Andrew Purvis, Director, Sustainable Manufacturing, said, ‘I am proud to recognise the commitment and effort of our members towards the wellbeing of their workforce and contractor community. The stories shared here are more than just examples; they highlight the remarkable progress made in safeguarding lives and promoting and preserving health.’
The recognised companies this year are:
For safety culture and leadership
BlueScope Steel Limited – Integrating HOP into foundational HSE processes
In 2019, BlueScope started its global HOP (Human and Organisational Performance) journey by proactively piloting HOP-based Leadership Workshops as top management was curious about evolved safety thinking. BlueScope is at the stage of systems and processes being simplified and updated to embed the HOP philosophy into everything it does, so that the practice is sustained.
Liberty Steel – Transforming safety culture and performance through human performance principles
In 2019, a decision was made to initiate a transformative journey to reshape the safety culture across the organisation. To drive this transformation, a comprehensive roadmap was developed, known as ‘The WRIB [We are InfraBuild] Safe Way.’ Underpinning this, are four strategic pillars, with the overarching goal of creating a world-class safety culture and safety performance.
For occupational safety management
ACERINOX S.A. – Innovative roll cover solution enhances safety and operational efficiency in hot mill operations
In February 2022, a critical challenge arose at Columbus Stainless hot strip mill when a finishing mill backup roll (BUR) suffered a catastrophic failure, posing a risk to personnel and equipment. To address this, a cross-functional team embarked on a mission to create a preventive solution that prioritised safety without compromising operational efficiency.
JFE Steel Corporation – Safe work support using safety monitoring system
At JFE Steel, the latest information and communications technology (ICT), artificial intelligence (AI) and data science technologies are being used to develop and commercialise more new technologies to ensure the safety of workers at manufacturing sites.
For occupational health management
Tenaris – Ergonomics programme
Confab, Tenaris’ production centre in Brazil, started evaluating the ergonomic conditions in its pipe manufacturing mills back in 2016. Before implementing its ergonomics programme, the production centre reported an average of 42 employees per year with work restrictions due to injuries associated with poor ergonomics. Following this assessment, a three-year ergonomics programme was introduced, including an annual review and evaluations by a cross-functional team to establish investment priorities.
For process safety management
Tata Steel – Real-time visualisation of risk movement
All high-potential safety risk scenarios were identified at Tata Steel by implementing a Process Safety Management framework. To prevent and mitigate high-potential scenarios, a number of safety barriers were identified. However, in some instances, there was a fair probability of some early failure indications going unnoticed, which could cause the failure of barriers, leading to high potential incidents. Consequently, Tata Steel felt that tracking the health of the barriers on a real-time basis was needed. The company’s innovative approach to real-time visualisation of risk movement aims to provide real-time insights and alerts on the level of risk.
More details on each of the initiatives can be found in worldsteel’s Safety and Excellence Recognition 2023 publication (click on the link on the right of this page).
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Notes
The World Steel Association (worldsteel) is one of the largest and most dynamic industry associations in the world, with members in every major steel-producing country. worldsteel represents steel producers, national and regional steel industry associations, and steel research institutes. Members represent around 85% of global steel production.