In another special edition of the Ace World Companies blog, Tad Dunville talks about safety with Shayne May, director, E H&S at ArcelorMittal, Tailored Blanks Americas.
You don’t read that very often in a business world that’s obsessed with the power of positive thinking and the cup being half full. However, that mindset doesn’t get you anywhere in safety. To lead or contribute to a safety culture that keeps accidents and near misses to an absolute minimum, you must always be preoccupied with failure. If 99 things could go right but a single thing wrong, zone in on that negative and see if risk can be reduced or eliminated. When you’ve done that, consider what else could go wrong and obsess over another worst-case scenario.
If that’s not uplifting enough for you, look at it this way: this is how we make sure people go home to their families at night.
This article touches upon a journey that has been taken by ArcelorMittal Tailored Blanks Americas. They have created an HSE Management System, which includes 30 HSE Corporate Standards that have become part of the fabric of life where approximately 500 people work across 10 of its facilities.
It’s something of a case study about a standout example of an organization with a world-class safety program that continues to focus on improving safety performance and is never satisfied with the status quo. ArcelorMittal Tailored Blanks Americas has been successful because it has created a broader safety culture that has 100% buy-in from everyone who reports for duty at the start of each shift. In fact, they think and speak about safety all the time; it’s a matter of practice.
These 30 HSE corporate standards are worthy of further discussion. In 2012, a decision was taken to create safety documents covering different working areas. Seven standards were produced in the first year, eight the next and by 2015, thirty standards had been developed. The entire process was expected to take five years but it was expedited to three-and-a-half. One of the standards specifically covers cranes and lifting devices; others address different health and safety requirements and working practices.
Each standard includes a number of relevant requirements specific to that standard. The safety standards were compiled using the most stringent regulatory requirements, industry standards, and best management practices. The standard that covers cranes, for example, might include knowledge from the lifting sector, but it is an ArcelorMittal Tailored Blanks Americas document first and foremost.
It’s a point worth reiterating. If an organization does not take ownership of the safety programs that surround their equipment and instead solicits a third party to create the facility program, they may get a robust document on paper; however, there will be two fundamental problems: one, it won’t be tailored to the operations at the site; and, two, it more than likely won’t be supported and sufficiently understood by plant managers and other staff. A generic safety plan, even if it includes sound guidance, is useless if people don’t follow it. Safety procedures and programs are most effective when people take ownership. ArcelorMittal Tailored Blanks Americas is proof of that; the management team is responsible for safety.
Some countries inherently take more risks than others, so it’s important that a company’s standards exceed those of the nations in question. ArcelorMittal Tailored Blanks Americas lifts coils in Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. so the requirements of each must be considered. A generic, in-house, America-wide safety standard wouldn’t work. Annual inspections might be required in Canada; Mexican authorities may demand operator training every year, and the company’s U.S.-written documentation might only specify such training every three years.
It’s one reason why treating each facility as a component in a larger safety machine is important. A company’s safety standards or procedures should be made readily available to all employees—all 30 are prominent on ArcelorMittal Tailored Blanks Americas intranet.
Set a precedent: it should be explained to new employees that they are expected to understand safety procedures and can expect others around them to do the same. They should be given assurances that certification, inspection, and training are part of daily life at the company, and they will become part of a truly robust safety culture, not just come to work at a business where people try to stay safe. New and long-time employees should contribute to annual audits where plant managers, directors, and others responsible for health and safety, are held accountable for the safety performance of their sites.
ArcelorMittal Tailored Blanks Americas audits each standard on an annual basis, and all businesses should be frequently reviewing their systems to ensure they are up to date with the evolution of a workplace. Imagine if a safety document was drawn up when a site only had a one 1t capacity crane and no forklifts, and it has now got a dozen, 30t capacity cranes with auxiliary hoists and dozens of lift trucks operating around the aisles. Where a document may specify that the use of C-hooks is best practice, it might be prudent to revisit that at certain workstations or production areas, where coil grabbers may be safer or more productive. Moving from pendant to remote control might be another alteration.
Productivity is actually a dangerous word to use in an article about safety. After all, it’s a subject where the return on investment is secondary to statistics about injury and life. Facilities that have a solid safety record are typically interested in leading, not lagging, indicators. By that we mean, that understanding risk and reducing it as much as possible allows a company to prevent accidents and build a true robust safety culture.
Very little in life or at work is risk-free and as long as there’s a risk an accident can happen. However, it’s a good exercise to imagine what the risk-free version of a workplace or activity looks like and try to get as close to it as possible. For example, take the EOT cranes out of a steel facility and a great deal of risk is removed, but how will the coils and dies get moved? Revisit the scenario with the cranes back in the picture but consider how damage to personnel and property can be reduced almost to the point where no lifting equipment was present.
Where a business with a true safety culture plays the winning hand every time is its ability to limit or reduce complacency. It might be the simplest, most often-repeated task in a workplace, but it must never be carried out complacently. As this blog has discussed before, the temptation to become complacent can be managed or removed by regular job rotation. It takes a lot of practice to perfect, but with the right standards, training, leadership, and support throughout a hierarchy, it’s possible to create the safety culture we should all try to achieve.
If safety is not a culture, someone is going to get something wrong one day. Fact.
Thank you for reading.
Tad Dunville
Membership Vice President, Crane Certification Association of America
Shayne May
Director, E H&S, ArcelorMittal, Tailored Blanks Americas
Shayne.May@arcelormittal.com
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