Ternium won a worldsteel prize in the Work Security Management category, thanks to the project of decreasing risks in the operations with the forklift.
Ternium is part of the six companies that the World Steel Association (worldsteel) prized the last Tuesday by its excellency at offering noticeable improvement in topics of security and healthcare for the people who work in the steel industry. This is about praising the commitment with the highest security and health standards in work sites.
The company won a prize in the Work Security Management category, thanks to the Secure Forklift project, whose objective is to decrease the risks of severe accidents due the use of the forklift and to standardize the security practices in workers and vendors.
To implement it, the company created a multidisciplinary committee with operators, superintendents, security technicians, managers, and directors, who organized meetings to identify the common causes of accidents related with the forklift. Once the causes were established, Ternium implemented solution strategies according to three elements: operative practices, human resources, and technology.
The results were satisfactory. In 2019, 36 accidents related with the forklift were registered, and then 12 in 2020. “The data shows a considerable improvement in the number of severe events with the forklift, decreasing the metric ton incidents by 65%”, mentions the wordsteel newsletter in which the awarded companies were announced.
Alejandro Jacobsen, Security, Health, and Environment Director in Ternium, explains the scope of the company’s initiative: “This project shows a systemic approach with involvement and leader support that shows excellent results. It is a methodology that we are going to replicate in all Ternium, in this and other risk factors.”
“Ternium’s Secure Forklift Project is innovative by its integral and multi-focal approach,” highlighted worldsteel.
“In the Supply Chain we had the need to find different and structured solutions that will help us control the risk in our intensive activities with the forklift operation. The causes analysis of security events; the definition of work fronts for the implementation of solutions, and the forklift committee’s follow up, were the keys for making it true. The teamwork was crucial,” said Marcela del Río, the Logistics, Coating, Customization, and Distribution Centers Manager in Ternium Mexico.
“Ternium’s Secure Forklift Project is innovative by its integral and multi-focal approach, in a close relation with the employees and vendors, and for using high technology engineer controls for minimising the human dependency,” the Association added in the prospectus that describes the winner projects.
The other winning companies this year were BlueScope Steel Limited, Qatar Steel Company, Tata Steel Europe, Tata Steel Limited, and Gerdau S.A.
In the awards’ presentation, worldsteel highlights the innovation and creativity behind each project. “The presented examples show the science application in the contemporaneous security in the steel industry, including risk decreasing examples in the transportation of steel products, and facing the COVID-19 pandemic using digital controls.
You can check Ternium’s project in detail here.