The manufacture of energetic products requires the highest level of safety management and individual competency to minimize the risk. Chemring has had serious incidents in the past and works hard to learn lessons from all accidents and near misses to reduce the likelihood of future occurrences.
Whilst we are pleased to report that there have been no serious safety incidents in the year, our safety programmes are heavily influenced by the incident in October 2007 at our facility in Colleferro, Italy, which lead to the death of one of our employees.
Following the incident, a formal structured investigation and root cause analysis was undertaken using an established process. This generated a series of actions which were communicated across the Chemring Group and progress at each facility monitored to closure. In 2008, the Chemring health and safety representatives visited Colleferro to see first hand the circumstances and local arrangements.
We are determined to do all we can to minimise the likelihood of similar impacts in the future.
Following three years of static lost time performance, added focus has shown a real improvement in performance in 2008 with our lost time incident rate (calculated using US OSHA rules) reducing from 1.56 to 1.20 incidents per 100 employees:
This performance improvement has been achieved by implementation of several structured and formal processes including:
- cultural development
- product safety management
- introduction of formal ‘safety case’ processes
- enhanced training
- manufacturing process refinement
- extended audit programmes
- product safety reviews
Six of our sites reported no lost work days in the financial year which is an excellent achievement.
A focus on ‘near misses’ this year has resulted in 1,332 being formally reported and acted upon. Employees are encouraged to report issues, however small, which then go through a rigorous corrective action process.
In recognition of the need to drive further improvements in the management of Health & Safety within Chemring, we embarked upon a project to develop and establish a common safety culture across the Group’s businesses. The project undertook audits and employee culture surveys at most sites in Europe and North America and from the themes which emerged, a number of common approaches have been defined including leadership behaviour, training & competence, maintenance management and the implementation of safety case methodology. The project also included a review of the Group’s Health, Safety & Environment Management System, which has been updated and re-published as a result.
Cultural development is an on-going activity and further actions will emerge.
New acquisitions are rapidly introduced to the Chemring safety philosophy with detailed regulatory compliance audits and programme gap analysis. Risk registers are compiled and the businesses are required to reduce the major risks as low as reasonably practicable.
In the US, all businesses participated in a Process Safety Management workshop with external speakers to ensure that a common level of knowledge and awareness was in place and best practice networks established.
Chemring has committed to substantial investments in facilities that will, in addition to improving productivity, improve the safety of the workforce by reducing the levels of risk.
Chemring also work closely with Cranfield University both for the supply of employee training programmes and for the development of simulation modelling to evaluate blast and thermal effects from ignition of pyrotechnic materials.
Chemring Marine has developed instructional video clips which can be used by professionals at sea for crew training and also by the public at large to improve awareness of the safe use of their products. These video clips are available to all on their website. Chemring Marine has also supplied various safety training products to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.