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Health and Safety
Alcoa’s key safety goal is to have zero fatalities, lost work day injuries or recordable injuries. Although there were no fatalities again in 2006, we did not achieve the target of zero lost work day or recordable injuries.
However, lost work day injuries were reduced from eight in 2005 to four in 2006.
On total recordable injuries, Alcoa Australia Rolled Products achieved a 19% reduction, the Victorian operations were stable and WA operations recorded a 15% increase. Nationally, total recordable injuries increased by 7% in 2006.
We are continuing to aim for zero injuries through:
- Visible safety leadership by managers and supervisors
- Development of a safety culture built around an acceptance that everyone is accountable for safety
- A strong focus on behavioural safety
- Standardisation of routine work to specify the safest methods for each task
- Pre-task risk assessments for non-routine work
- Robust investigation procedures to understand causes and contributing factors for every incident and ensure corrective actions are implemented.
Alcoa has a range of occupational health programs in place to reduce ergonomic risks and exposure to airborne contaminants and noise.
Since 1994, Alcoa has supported one of the largest occupational health research programs ever conducted in Australia. Conducted by independent researchers from the University of WA and Monash University, the Healthwise research program is examining cancer incidence and mortality rates and the respiratory health of Alcoa employees in Australia.
Safety culture change
A wide-ranging program has been implemented at Wagerup refinery to strengthen the safety culture at all levels of the business.
The aim of the Safety Culture Change program is to eliminate injuries and incidents by developing a strong safety culture with an emphasis on individual accountability for safety.
The program was launched in late 2006 and has significantly reduced injury rates in the first half of 2007.
The key elements of the program are:
- Active engagement and empowerment of work crews to address their own safety issues
- Strong safety leadership and increased management interaction with safety management
- Clearly defined safety expectations for employees at all levels
- Daily visual management systems to maximise visibility and awareness of safety issues and maintain the commitment to improvement
- Identification of best practice approaches that are already being used by Wagerup crews and can be deployed throughout the refinery.
Early outcomes includes monthly safety development days for each crew and restructuring of daily toolbox meetings to put more emphasis on safety aspects of the day’s work.
More than 200 safety projects have been identified in crew safety plans and are now underway. Visual display boards have been installed in all Operating Centres to raise awareness of safety management by displaying safety plans, progress on addressing issues and performance indicators.
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