Safety to the Rescue: What is the Benefit for Production?

Safety and Production: How to Find a Balance and Not Lose Efficiency

Under the conditions of strict production plans, safety issues often fade into the background. Repair deadlines are shifted, and minor malfunctions are ignored, which inevitably leads to an increased risk of injuries and accidents. Evgeny Novikov, Head of the HSE Tools Development Department at Lebedinsky GOK (Metalloinvest), explains how to change this paradigm and make safety an integral part of efficient production.

The presentation details the process of transforming the occupational safety system in a large mining and metallurgical company. Using an example, the speaker shows why changes must start with top management and how the involvement of managers at all levels changes the attitude towards safety in the workplace.

Transformation Tools: From IT Solutions to Standardization

To achieve safety goals, the company implemented a comprehensive approach affecting various areas of activity:

• Digital assistants and system integration: An HSE portal was created where every employee can record risks or deviations in equipment operation. The system is integrated with SAP, which allows for the automatic creation of requests to eliminate problems. This speeds up the response to incidents and makes the process transparent.
• Standardization of a manager's work: Standards for line walkarounds using risk management tools have been implemented. A manager goes to the shop floor not to "find the guilty," but with a clear understanding of problem areas thanks to a digital heat map of the department.
• Norms for territory and work: Standards for maintaining repair sites (using 5S tools) have been developed, and standard operating procedures (SOPs) have been revised taking into account identified risks. This reduces the likelihood of injuries due to chaotic storage of materials and unsafe work methods.

Certification of Managers: Assessing Safety Leadership

The company's transition to a systemic level of safety culture (according to the Hudson model) required an assessment of the competencies of the managers themselves. The speaker analyzes the internal certification process, which includes:

• Assessment of proficiency in proactive safety tools.
• Analysis of a manager's "safety radius": their behavior on site, use of PPE, and reaction to risks.
• Assessment of the ability to work with a team and form a "projection of the future" (foresight of consequences) among employees.
• Formation of a shop safety rating based on the speed of risk elimination and feedback from workers.

Successful completion of the certification confirms the status of a safe production leader, and in the future, it is planned to link these results to managers' KPIs.

What you will learn from this webinar:

• How to convince top management of the need to invest in safety?
• How does digitalization help identify and eliminate production risks?
• What is a department's "heat map" and how does it save a manager's time during walkarounds?
• How is HSE leadership of managers assessed?
• How does risk management training in production affect the reduction of domestic injuries?