The International Stainless Steel Forum has recently announced the winners of their two Premier Annual Awards during their Annual Conference in Helsinki. The winner of the Sustainability Award is Outokumpu, for maximising water recycling in their Cold Rolling Plant in Mexico. The winner of the Safety Award is North American Stainless, for their Safety Performance Improvement project.
San Luis Potosi, Mexico, where Outokumpu’s Mexinox cold rolling mill is located, is an arid area, where groundwater is a scarce and valuable asset for people and livestock. Reducing the volume of water which is required for their production increases the volume that can be used for other vital human needs. The progression of water recycling at Mexinox has been based on long term projects.
In 2014 North American Stainless ended the year with 4.51 recordable injuries per million man hours worked and 1.13 lost time injuries. They recognized that greater employee engagement in safety programs could lead to further reductions in injury levels. Management widened the Incident Reporting System to include Near Miss Reports and added a time limit to complete the reports and they introduced a Behavioural Based Observation (BBO) Safety Program with all employees completing BBO’s and Managers, Supervisors and Group Leaders began conducting safety talks every morning throughout the plant. With the increased level of employee awareness and participation NAS have been able to significantly reduce their recordable and lost time injuries.
