Escenarios de la política tradicional en la democracia de la Localidad

In the past Business, Government and Labour have all participated together in creating an environment that promotes the management of occupational health and safety. The common goal is to make the workplace safe and healthy. A vehicle to

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attaining this goal is the engagement of employees with management in joint decision-making and solving problems related to their health and safety via sophisticated OHS management processes.

To accommodate these objectives, NPC-Cimpor has established and embarked on management processes that encourages the participation of health and safety activities. These processes include the monthly review of operational matters in the S.H.E. Committees meetings, the reporting and investigation of injuries and damages in the accident/incident investigation committees, the planning, scheduling and implementation of daily maintenance programs. In addition management processs also include the identification and problem solving meetings to continuously improve OHS, the review of OHS management system effectiveness in management reviews meetings, the identification of hazards and the assessment of risks in the ad-hoc committee meetings, and the review and planning of actions and objectives in bi- annual and annual reviews.

In essence the business processes at NPC-Cimpor follow the steps of measurement, monitoring, managing and finding methods to continuously improve the current performance in health and safety. These improvements exercises are undertaken within operations in the company, and also within companies in the South African Cement Industry, and between South Africa and other cement manufacturing countries affiliated in the World Business Council for Sustainability Development. The challenge is to always have a standard system that can fulfil the requirements of these various stakeholders.

The company has a standard system in the form of an computerised library portal. It supports the reporting of fatalities, serious accidents that result in employees being absent from work, minor accidents that need first aid treatment with employees returning to work on the same day of the injury incident. The reporting of near miss incidents, which is a potential accident that did not cause any harm or damage to

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property, health chronic cases of high blood pressure, diabetes , alcoholism and drug dependency, mental health and HIV/Aids.

Primarily the data is used to measure two performance indicators, which are used across the operations and the South African Cement Industry, namely the disabling injury frequency rate (DIFR) and severity rate. The DIFR is a ratio of the number of injuries that have resulted in employees being away from work when compared to the man-hours worked in the period under review. This factor is then multiplied by one million to make the ratio more realistic. In line with this definition, the severity rate measures the severity of the injury by determining the number of days the injured employee was absent from work as a result of the injury versus the man-hours worked in the period under review. This factor is then increased by multiplying it by a million. These indicators do not have any units. In addition the Company views all contractors related to its manufacturing processes as employees and they are also included in the compilation of the two OHS performance indicators.

The measuring, collection and recording of data is a necessary evil, however more importantly is the evaluation of such data. The database affords management to monitor trends and analyse, giving some meaning and understanding what the data is indicating. The S.H.E. department has been seconded with this responsibility and accountable to report to management to recommend mitigation or preventative measures that aim to eliminate and reduce the risks associated with prediction of possible hazards associated with the injuries.

The key to operational excellence at NPC-Cimpor is the focus on continuous improvements. In recent years, the emphasis has shifted remarkably towards making improvements in health and safety performance as one of the main responsibilities for plant management. With the clear performance measurement, the data collection, the data analysis, the evaluations that are well established and the leverage to benchmarking across operations, companies, industries and countries; line

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management can establish its current OHS performance to implement improvement plans.

The philosophy around S.H.E. improvement has followed the breakthrough and continuous improvement strategies. The company experienced a spate of fatalities and serious accidents in 2009. This triggered a spate of interventions. The company immediately embarked on a S.H.E. awareness campaign, focusing on influencing employee behaviour and attitude. No information was leaked out and the sudden launch of the safety campaign in 2010, that coincided with the launch of the World Soccer Cup in South Africa. The coampny aimed at establishing a new culture of doing things within the Company. All operations were stopped, thus demonstrating to the masses that Senior Management perceived safety as one of its top priorities. The impact of the improvement was relatively sudden or abrupt and represented a different way of doing things. Senior Managers from across disciplines such as Finance, Information Technology, Human Resources and Sales participated depicting that safety was not an operational issue only. Such interventions were expensive, however improvements with the company experiencing fruitful safety and health performances going forward.

Operations have adopted the continuous improvement strategies where small incremental deviations in S.H.E. performance are investigated and solutions implemented. It has involved groups of employees from management and worker categories. The smaller interventions focussed more on the management systems issues, such as ensuring reviewing the zero energy isolation process, hazard identification and risk assessment review, emergency evacuation process and contractor management. These are smaller interventions than the breakthrough strategy, however having a greater impact on employee participation.

The improvement initiatives have increased leadership visibility, with the result that employees perceive that management is committed to the cause of ensuring the health and safety of the workers. The joint involvement in the PDCA (Plan, Do, Check

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and Act) cycle (Deming Wheel), has allowed greater interaction between workers and line management in finding innovative solutions on the plant floor. This process brings groups of employees together to focus on a common goal. This philosophy of viewing any problem as process with a flow of events, has allowed employees to constantly utilise the PDCA model in problem solving. It now has become culture with employees illustrating the term PDCA to imply that a particular problem needs to be solved systematically.