Situation
A global steel production company with sites in the US and over 90 years in the business has 53,000 employees globally. The company has a wide scope, handling everything from the mining of raw iron ore to all levels of steel production. Many organizations rate them as one of the best steel companies in the world. To continue operating at such a high production level, the company must pay great attention to the health and safety of their greatest asset, their employees. When the safety department at one of their US sites saw a consistent annual increase in incidents (averaging 67% across all incident types with a crew of 600 people), they began looking for ways to improve their safety processes, reduce incidents, and reduce OSHA violations.
Action Items
The safety team implemented Redlist’s HSE solution to accurately capture and track safety incident data. By placing tablets throughout the plant, employees were able to report incidents and near-incident information in real-time. In just under three years, they collected more than 3,500 employee reported safety issues. This has created a treasure trove of useful data. The company was able to build reports within Redlist that visualized the data, allowing them to identify trends early and pinpoint the root cause of incidents that were impossible to identify previously.
Impact
The most important impact of changes to safety procedures is the reduction of incidents. Since their implementation of Redlist in 2018, the company has reduced the occurrence of all incidents by an average of 50% with a category breakdown of:
| Incident Type | 2018 | 2020 | % Decrease |
| Injury | 55 | 24 | 43% |
| Property Damage | 93 | 49 | 52% |
| Near Miss | 84 | 42 | 50% |
| Environmental | 4 | 1 | 75% |
| Avg/Mon | 19.33 | 9.66 | 50% |
| Total | 236 | 116 | 50% |
The improved tracking and data analysis allows the safety team to provide additional training, improve the safety culture, and ultimately have a happier and healthier workforce. The 50% reduction of incidents has led to a great financial impact as well. By eliminating the increasing trend of OSHA violations, they save an estimated $85,000 to $115,000 per year in OSHA-related fines. Now, everyone has clear visibility into the safety program and can better visualize the path forward to greater decreases in safety-related incidents and deeper development of their safety culture.
